ISLAMABAD: Audit officials have unearthed irregularities in leasing out of prime land owned by Karachi Port Trust for a housing scheme meant for its employees.
Federal Audit’s Director General Syed Gulzar Hussain informed a meeting of the National Assembly’s standing committee on ports and shipping here on Monday that KPT had leased out 130 acres of its land for a meagre annual rent of 10 paisa per square yard on Aug 1, 1996.
The housing society comprises 591 residential plots of 1,000, 600 and 400 sq-yards and a flat site of 3,020 sq-yards. About 570 of the plots have been allotted to the KPT officers, while 250 acres have been earmarked for workers.
The ownership of another 130 acres at Mai Kolachi bypass is disputed, with the Sindh government being a claimant.
Mr Hussain said the KPT’s board of directors had not approved the lease and the KPT act also didn’t allow such a move. “If a government entity such as the KPT is allowed to use its land for constructing a housing society for its employees it will set a bad precedent for other public sector organisations.”
In reply to a question raised by committee chairman Rana Mahmoodul Hassan, Mr Hussain said the rate of the KPT land should be higher than that of land in Islamabad.
KPT chairperson Nasreen Haque argued that the trust had allowed the setting up of the housing society in order to improve governance at the port. When Sardar Mansab Ali Dogar of the PML-N asked her to explain her viewpoint, she could not come up with a satisfactory answer.
However, she insisted that it was the right of the KPT officers and staff to have their own housing society. Her only defence was that since the society had been in place for the past 22 years, it could not be wound up.
She said some of the allotted plots had changed hands several times and it would be difficult to reverse the decision at this point.
Nosheen Saeed of the PML-Q said the committee only wanted to determine whether the housing society was legal or not. “As far as audit officials’ report and documentary evidence placed before us are concerned, the society has been set up in clear violation of rules and regulations which we as members of the National Assembly can’t endorse,” she said.
Syed Nasir Ali Shah of the PPP criticised the KPT officials for using the land to build their houses. “If the KPT has built houses for its serving officers the decision will carry some justification, but how come building houses for retired employees will improve governance at the port?”
When the chairman wanted to pass a resolution against the society, Fauzia Wahab and Nauman Islam Sheikh of the PPP, despite accepting that a wrong had been committed by the KPT, argued that instead of scrapping the society some corrective measures should be taken to discourage the practice.
The chairman said that since building of a housing society was an unlawful act, the committee could not approve it. But when the two PPP lawmakers refused to vote for scrapping the society, the committee decided to put off the voting till the next meeting.
Manzoor Ahmad Mirza, a senior joint secretary of the law ministry, suggested that legal opinion be sought on the issue in the intervening period.
The committee ordered the KPT chairperson to submit the list of its serving and retired officials who had been allotted plots in the housing society.
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