ISLAMABAD: The Federal Government Employees Housing Foundation (FGEHF) awarded the Thalian residential project worth Rs35 billion to a company that was established two days before advertising of the project.

This was disclosed during the meeting of a special committee of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC). The meeting was informed that the FGEHF awarded the Thalian housing project to an unknown company, KS Builders, which was established a couple of days before the housing foundation invited bids for the joint venture residential project.

Under the project, the builder had to procure and develop the housing scheme spreading over 7,000 kanals.

The advertisement appeared in the press on March 22, 2015, whereas the KS Builders was established on March 20, 2015. The company opened a bank account in April 2015 and obtained the National Tax Number (NTN) in June 2015.

It means when the FGEHF had advertised the project the ‘successful bidder’ neither had a bank accounts nor an NTN.

Moreover, the special committee observed that the owners of the company, Khalid Javed and Saifullah Awan, were not competent to execute the project as their company had no experience of sector planning and developing.

Sardar Ashiq Hussain Gopang, the convener of the committee, noted that instead of a compact land the company acquired the land in pieces in different locations.

He explained that there may be more than 10 owners of a 100 kanal land but the builders purchased 10 kanals from one of them and it was not possible for the FGEHF to identify the acquired land unless it was properly divided among all the heirs.

As a result, he added, the land could not be identified and the progress would linger for several years.

The committee asked the FGEHF to stop work on the Thalian project and also restrained the builders as well as the dealers from advertising the housing scheme.

On April 27, during the scrutiny of the audit paras related to the Ministry of Housing and Works, PAC Chairman Syed Khursheed Shah had remarked that KS Builders was advertising the Thalian housing scheme using a photograph of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Housing Minister Akram Khan Durrani and the official logo of the FGEHF.

The scheme offers 12,138 plots to employees of the federal government as well as the general public.

The FGEHF had shifted thousands of leftover applications for plots in sectors F-14 and F-15 to the Thalian scheme and included it in the membership drive for phase-II in these sectors.

However, during the Friday meeting, PAC member Azam Khan Swati recalled that the Supreme Court had already set aside a joint venture of Capital Development Authority (CDA) with Multi-Professional Housing Society for developing E-11 northern strip, and the Thalian project would meet the same fate.

The ministry as well as the director general of the foundation defended the project and said they had signed a firm contract with the builders. They said the land acquired for the project was far below the existing price of land in the Thalian revenue estate.

The purchased land is worth between Rs300,000 and Rs40,000 per kanal, the FGEHF official claimed.

According to the FGEHF, the price of one kanal plot for government employee would be Rs2.3 million whereas for the general citizens it would be around Rs4 million.

Saifullah Awan of KS Builders, when contacted, told Dawn that their company was established several years ago. He said they contacted the FGEHF as a land provider and as the latter could only deal with a registered company they enlisted the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) in March 2015.

Published in Dawn, May 27th, 2017