ISLAMABAD, June 20: Several contractors have put in claims of a huge amount with the Capital Development Authority (CDA), saying they have done maintenance works at the residences of federal government employees.
However, official sources said the projects were done without following the laid down procedure and consent of the civic body, it has been learnt.
Each year, the civic body allocates about Rs1.5 billion for maintenance work in the houses of federal government employees and federal institutions - Presidency, Prime Minister House, Parliament House and a few government towers.
“The claims made by the contractors have irked the finance department which is now supposed to pay the amount that has crossed over Rs50 million. The works were, however, done by the contractors without Capital Development Authority consent,” said a CDA official.
He said it had been a normal practice in the CDA engineering and maintenance wing to engage contractors for completion of any work and later furnish a claim of the contractors with the finance department for early release of the payments.
“On several occasions, contractors directly approached the member engineering, telling him to press the finance department for an early release of their amount as they completed the job on the maintenance department’s request,” said the official.
Most of the contractors, he added, had completed tiling, door repairs, piping work, whitewash and other small contracts. “I have completed whitewashing at a senior government functionary’s residence as we often do such work on the request of Capital Development Authority’s maintenance wing because we have good relations with them,” said one of the contractors requesting anonymity.
He said they were supposed to submit a claim to the CDA after completion of the job.
“I have submitted a claim of over Rs100,000 for the whitewash,” said the contractor.
The finance wing official insisted that such claims had put an added pressure on CDA’s finance managers because it cleared the claimed amount on pressure from senior management officials.
When contacted, the CDA spokesman said: “The authority is following the procedure laid down by the federal government before giving any maintenance work to contractors.”
However, if a contractor as done some work on his own, the CDA is not supposed to release the amount, he added.
He said before contracting any work to a company, a complete estimation is done.
“A tight financial policy has already forced us to block routine maintenance work of several government residences so there is no big pressure of contractors at all on the Capital Development Authority,” claimed the spokesman.
