RAWALPINDI: The Punjab government has failed to fill the post of director general of Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) after the transfer of Rana Akbar Hayat to Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) administration last week.

Besides, the government has yet to nominate the members of the authority’s governing body.

Mr Hayat was appointed the RDA director general in May.

A senior RDA official told Dawn that the government had neither appointed director general nor given the charge of the post to any senior official of the district government.

“In the past, a deputy commissioner would run the day to day affairs of the RDA after the post fell vacant.

The vacancy will create administrative problems for the civic body as all the building plans, no-objection certificates for housing schemes are issued with signatures of the director general,” he said.

The official said the RDA director general was the chief executive of the civic body and the post of the chairman was ceremonial.

He said the government had also failed to appoint members for the governing body.

“The governing body consisted of 15 members — 10 of them are senior government officials, four members of Punjab Assembly and two are selected on technical seats.

The government officials are Planning and Development chairman, finance secretary, local government and rural development secretary, housing and urban development secretary, Rawalpindi mayor, commissioner, deputy commissioner and Wasa managing director,” he said.

He said the PTI government had appointed Arif Abbasi as the RDA chairman. He said that two ministers of PTI in Punjab and federal government Mehmoodur Rashid and Amir Kiani respectively would visit Rawalpindi and were expected to announce the names of the governing body next week.

Published in Dawn, November 4th, 2018