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ISLAMABAD: Who would invest Rs6 billion in projects for profit but abandon them - and sell the remaining assets just to survive? Obviously someone who is stupid, or is reckless with his money.
But sadly this is the story of the Capital Development Authority (CDA). It spent that much money on cultural and entertainment projects over the past six years but the grand structures raised remain unused to this day.
These ghost structures are the Citizens Club in F-9 Park, cost Rs1.14 billion, the Cultural Complex at Shakarparian (Rs1.2 billion), the Ladies Club (Community Club and Marriage Hall) in G-10 (Rs700 million), Arts and Craft Village (Rs2 billion), and the Mini Sports Complexes (Rs400 million) and Libraries and Gyms (Rs50 million) in different sectors.
CDA officials agree that just the first three could earn the cash-strapped civic body millions yearly if put to commercial use after being furnished and equipped for the purposes they were built.
In fact, the cost of finishing the job keeps rising with the inflation.
A CDA finance wing officer fumes that “right now, the only way for us to raise revenue is to sell plots (land) while the billions we invested in the entertainment projects look wasted”.
The Citizens Club, renamed a community centre in compliance of a Supreme Court ruling, boasts a 475-seat auditorium, library, conference halls, restaurants, swimming pools, fitness centres and tennis courts, among other facilities.
“Yes, the Supreme Court ruling is there,” conceded another officer. “But it did not stop CDA from profiting from the Rs1.14 billion of taxpayers money invested in it. And these structures are meant for the general public.”
Similarly, the half-finished Shakarparian Cultural Complex was planned to have a 3,500-seat auditorium, an amphitheatre, piazza, conference hall, cinema, mosque, restaurants, and gazebo. Work on the project has stopped as the CDA has blocked payments to the contractor, according to the officer.
“But the ultimate loser would be the CDA as the contractor will get relief from the court,” he said.
No such hurdles confront the Ladies Club which needs only finishing touches by the developer.
Its two marriage halls, a cinema with a seating capacity for 200 people, swimming pool, coffee shops and restaurants have the potential of earning CDA over Rs100 million yearly but just stand there as a magnificent waste.
“It is sheer madness for CDA to start new development projects but let decay those already finished and which could pull it out of its financial crisis,” observed an official.
A finance wing official estimates that operating the cinema and the marriage halls in the Ladies Club alone can bring CDA Rs100 million a year renting out its restaurants another Rs40 million.
And the Community Centre in F-9 Park can earn it more than double that and the Shakarparian Cultural Complex about the same.
When the propositions were put to the CDA spokesman Ramzan Sajid, he merely said: “The matter has already been taken up by the Prime Minister's Task Force on CDA and a few decisions taken.”
Chairman of the task force Faisal Sakhi Butt, however, was more forthcoming. He said the CDA had been directed to look into Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) options for making the dead projects alive.
“We will start with the Ladies Club in G-10 since private parties and the Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry have shown interest,” Butt said, promising to make “every dysfunctional project efficient and profitable within three months”.
