ISLAMABAD, July 27: The Capital Development Authority (CDA) has given a new turn to an inquiry conducted into the alleged irregularities in Rs51 million projects, a source in the CDA told Dawn.

The source said instead of probing into the irregularities in the projects, which were completed in the last two years, the authority had decided to clear all liabilities of Rs175 million to the contractors.

“These liabilities had been pending for the last five years and now we have decided to clear them once for all,” the CDA acting director-general (services), Jahanzeb Khan, said.

He said the contractors would be paid the entire amount of Rs175 million and if any irregularity was detected, the concerned official would be punished.

On the other hand, some of the CDA contractors told Dawn that no irregularity had been committed in the uplift works for which payment was not released by the authority.

They said the payment of Rs51 million was made by the finance wing to the services division of the CDA but the acting director- general (services) had been bypassed and payments were directly given to the concerned directorate.

“As the acting director-general (services) was by-passed, he was deprived of his share in the commission which is given by the contractors to the concerned CDA official for every contract,” they alleged.

The contractors said the release orders had been cancelled by the newly-appointed member engineering Brig Ghulam Akbar Bokhari.

They were of the view that the dues of the contractors working with the services wing were likely to be disbursed by the acting director-general (services).

Earlier, it had been decided that the dues amounting to Rs51 million would be given to the contractors but now the decision has been changed and the liabilities of Rs175 million would be paid through director-general (services), the contractors said.

They said that they had invested money on various projects related to the construction of roads, streets, maintenance of government offices and houses and water supply projects but had not received even a single penny for the last one year.

“According to the CDA officials, our dues have been seized for changing the scope of uplift works but the authority does not realize that any addition in the project is made on the instructions of its own officials who force the contractors to do so,” they added.