RAWALPINDI, April 21: Another housing scam involving educationists is in the making as about 4,500 members of the Education City Housing Society have been waiting for the “developed plots” for the last six years, it has been learnt.
The Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE), Punjab, has completed initial probe into the housing project after four teachers had registered complaints about not getting plots.“I applied for nine plots each measuring 10 marla and paid Rs150,000 for each as first installment,” Waqar Ahmed, a schoolteacher from Jehlum, said in his complaint to the ACE Rawalpindi.
The complaint maintained that Mr Ahmed at the time of applying for plots did not doubt any foul play as “known persons from the education sector were the developers and advertisers.”
In 2004 the housing project was initiated in Fatehjang by Education Foundation, a Lahore-based organisation working for the “welfare of the retired and serving teachers”, according to the officials of the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE) Rawalpindi.
In his complaint Mr Ahmed deplored that thousands of retired teachers invested hard earned money to have a house but the society's management had thus far not been able to purchase any land anywhere.
Requesting anonymity another complainant, a female teacher of the International Islamic University, Islamabad, said: “I relied on the developers as educationists, including former BISE Rawalpindi chairman Dr Iftikhar Ahmed Baig, were involved.”
She told the ACE that she applied for 14 plots, spending Rs2 million as “some of my relatives also invested their money”.
A widow, the teacher said she invested the pension of her husband for better future of children. But to her dismay, the advertising agency highlighting the housing project had vanished. She had also been unable to contact Dr Baig who persuaded her to invest in the housing scheme.
An official of Rawalpindi office of ACE told Dawn that during initial inquiry, Dr Baig maintained he once headed the management of the society but currently its affairs were run by the Education Foundation.
According to the official, the developers said they purchased 2,500 kanals land in Fatehjang but later the site was demarcated for the construction of new airport for Islamabad, maintaining that the Ministry of Defence stopped them from staring “development work”.
Director ACE Rawalpindi Chaudhry Saleem Hussain said his department had completed preliminary probe into the allegations against four “officials of the education department” for depriving teachers of their money.
He added that the permission of director general ACE Punjab was required to formally register FIR against the government officials in BPS-19 and above. “A request has been sent to Lahore for approval.”
Mr Hussain said the ACE had also requested the federal government to put the name of all accused on Exit Control List (ECL). As soon as FIR is registered against the accused, they would be arrested and produced before the court, he added.