LAHORE: Commissioner Muhammad Ali Randhawa, who also holds charge of the office of Lahore Development Authority (LDA) director general, has appointed director (development) as inquiry officer to probe reconstruction of ‘new roads’ in Johar Town and other issues involving alleged waste of public funds.

Mr Randhawa has also transferred the Directorate of Housing (VII) director for not giving allegedly important records related to the forged files of a number of Johar Town plots to a fact-finding committee and the Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE), Dawn has learnt.

“The director (development) based at the office of the Lahore Commissioner has been tasked with the probe into the reconstruction of the newly built roads allegedly by the LDA in Johar Town — Shadiwal Chowk to Khokhar Chowk etc. The inquiry officer has also sought the record from the officers concerned but they have not provided us with the relevant record yet,” an official source in the commissioner’s office told Dawn.

He added that the LDA’s Urban Development Wing would also be questioned about floating of a number of tenders for launch of development schemes and issuance of work orders despite the fact the LDA was passing through a financial crunch and had no money to clear bills/payments of over Rs1bn.

The LDA DG transferred Housing (VII) Director Sibtain Qureshi for not giving the probe committee the record of the fake duplicate files of 100 plots in Johar Town, which were unlawfully sold while the Lahore ACE also took up the issue following a media report.

“The ACE officers also told a senior official that they may take Mr Qureshi and others concerned into custody,” an LDA official told Dawn.

It merits mention that an initial had recently unearthed bogus files of 100 residential plots in Johar Town whose record in the LDA was missing. The officers deputed for initial probe had sent the list of the plots’ files to the LDA’s fact-finding committee.

The director (IT) has written to the officer concerned for provision of record/papers.

According to the official, these all plots were the LDA property but their duplicate files were prepared fraudulently by the private people as well as the LDA officers. He revealed the LDA had not an updated record of its properties not only in Johar Town but also in other schemes it developed since its inception in 1975. The nexus of LDA officials and fraudsters had allegedly used the file numbers that had already been declared fake and published in the print media around 13 years back.

Published in Dawn, March 17th, 2023