Capital Development Authority (CDA) Chairman Imtiaz Inayat Elahi sees no fraud and bogus allotments in one of the biggest land scams in the federal capital allegedly committed in the compensation package given to the villagers of Kuri for their land acquired to establish a model village.
A recent statement of the CDA chief that there was no malpractice found in the award of the rehabilitation/compensation package negated his own previous statement in which he had acknowledged large-scale corruption in allotment of hundreds of plots in the model village and 18 agro-farms.
He had also removed the CDA director land, Waseem Shamshad, and cancelled all the (30x70 square-yard) plot allotment letters issued in the names of the villagers against their built-up property. Those who had no house or structure in the village were not eligible for the plots.
The CDA chairman recently also revealed that in his absence Mr Shamshad had issued 500 allotment letters of residential plots in a single day followed by another 400 the very next day. A total of 3,961 allotment letters were issued of which more than 2,400 did not have the approval.
The authority's dispatch register has the entries of these 3,961 allotment letters but no one has any idea if any number of the allotment was issued besides those reflected on the record.
The complaints about the fake entries in the award list were lodged with the office of chairman CDA, members Estate and the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) after which all the allotment letters were cancelled. Sources in the CDA say the cancellation of allotment letters was just an eyewash as CDA will again allot the plots to the same people.
It has also been learnt that the director land was made a scapegoat in the whole episode after he refused to meet the demands of CDA's political lords and some ruling party leaders who wanted to get hundreds of plots in the name of fake villagers.
The question arises that if there was no fraud in the allotment, as claimed by the CDA chief, then why the director land was removed for being involved in fake allotments. In fact, the award was announced by the deputy commissioner CDA and subsequently approved by the CDA board and the chairman on August 16, 2010.
The actual story behind the whole episode is that there was a deal between the villagers committee and a so-called 'adviser' to the CDA to include hundreds of fake plots in the compensation package. Somehow, the villagers committee backed out of the 'deal' at the time when allotment letters were issued to the villagers. On this, the director land was tasked to save the deal but he refused; as a result, he was removed from the post and has not yet been assigned any post.
When the director land refused to negotiate with the villagers committee, there was only one option with the CDA bosses to follow the orders of the adviser and cancel all the allotment letters.
Now they are ready to re-allot the plots to the villagers provided they are offered a better 'reward'. It is believed that all the cancelled allotment letters would be issued again but the silence of NAB and FIA, who are separately investigating the case, would be questionable even after the whole episode.
It is expected that the names of many influential people will come to the fore as the investigations proceed, because there are reports that some bigwigs were involved in the scam.
Sources in the FIA said apparently the agro-farms were allotted in the names of so-called villagers/locals against their lands but they have been transferred further through underhand deals.
According to the land disposal regulations of the CDA, agro-farms are auctioned or allotted to landholders in exchange of their 100 kanals of land anywhere in Islamabad. It has been proved in may fake cases in the past that bogus documents of 100 kanals were submitted to get agro-farms in different schemes, including Murree Road Farmhouses and Chak Shehzad Farmhouse Scheme.
The minimum cost of 100 kanals of land in rural area in Islamabad is said to be Rs20 million while an agro-farm at Murree Road costs more than Rs200 million.
Some of the villagers having 100 kanals or more than that usually sell documents of their land at a cost of Rs10 million because they know that they cannot get an agro-farm due to complicated process of allotment in the CDA and lack of say in the authority. These documents are purchased by rich and influential people through underhand deals who then get a farm allotted in the name of the original land owners and with the passage transfer it in their own names.
The CDA also formed a committee headed by member environment to probe into the scam but there are reports that it has not made any significant progress so far.