ISLAMABAD: A disgruntled leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, MNA Gulzar Khan, who revolted against party chief Imran Khan’s order to resign his National Assembly seat, has rejected National Accountability Bureau’s (NAB) allegation regarding his alleged involvement in leasing out of 6,000 kanals of state land in Dera Ismail Khan some nine years ago.

For its part, NAB is sticking to its stance that rules and prescribed procedure were not followed and gross irregularities were committed while leasing out in 2006 the land in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

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In his statement Mr Gulzar, who served as member of the Board of Revenue of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, described NAB’s allegation as “baseless” and insisted that he had acted lawfully and followed the advice of the department concerned.

He recalled that applications had been submitted to the office of the District Revenue Officer/Collector, Dera Ismail Khan, by various persons for acquiring on lease the land which was under the possession of agriculture department and meant for agriculture purposes.

In September of 2006, the Board of Revenue approved the lease recommended by the district lease committee and duly approved by the agriculture department both at the district as well as the provincial level, he added.

Referring to report of a fact-finding inquiry by Member of Board of Revenue, Mr Gulzar said the-then agriculture secretary began having second thoughts, after a lapse of 37 days, and wrote a letter to him, requesting that since the land so leased was meant for seed production, the lease be cancelled.

Consequently, the Board of Revenue submitted a brief note to the provincial chief secretary in October that same year, in which the whole story was narrated. In his observation the chief secretary held the district officers of the agriculture department responsible for failing to safeguard the interest of the department and ordered immediate disciplinary action against them.

The agriculture department, he said, immediately initiated an inquiry against the officers, while the Board of Revenue went for cancellation of the lease and efforts were made to take the possession of the land back which was subsequently done.

The inquiry conducted by Gulzeb Khan, the director of the Staff Training Institute, Establishment Department, and Muhammad Rahim, the director general of the Agriculture Research System, also found officers of the agriculture department responsible for concealing facts from the government.

Mr Gulzar also disputed the claim by NAB that the lease had caused a loss of Rs53.5 million to the exchequer. “This is based on supposition,” he maintained.

He said the leased out land, as per the record, had shown to have earned a “profit” of Rs300,000 between 2001 and 2005 by selling trees and old and worn out machinery. The actual losses during the five years preceding the lease amounted to Rs6 million.

The land could only have been used for seed production and not for any other purpose, the MNA said. “How could the land, which suffered losses before the lease, have earned Rs53 million is beyond me,” he concluded.

Talking to Dawn, a NAB spokesman said that out of 6,000 kanals of land, 3,000 kanals belonged to the provincial government. The rest of the land was the property of agriculture department.

He said that in violation of the rules, the land was leased out to seven persons for 99 years (instead of 33 years) on a monthly rent of Rs200. “Even after meeting all codal formalities, he was not authorised to lease out the land for 99 years as the lease period should not have been more than 33 years,” he said.

The spokesman said that neither a competition was arranged among the interested bidders nor was any government committee formed to approve the deal. No approval was sought from the-then chief minister.

Published in Dawn, May 20th, 2015

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