ISLAMABAD, Oct 19: The newly appointed Minister for Housing and Works, Lt-Gen Javed Ashraf Qazi (retired), has cancelled all out-of-turn allotment of government houses that were made by his predecessor, Abbas Sarfaraz Khan, sources in the ministry told Dawn on Saturday.
The sources said former minister Abbas Sarfaraz Khan, who resigned in order to participate in the general elections, had announced that he would not use his special powers to make out-of-turn allotment of government houses. However, just before his resignation, he made some 40 allotments.
They said the Housing Act empowered the minister to make out-of-turn allotments, but they should not be more than 10 per cent of the total allotted houses.
Mr Qazi had issued strict orders to cancel all directives regarding out-of-turn allotments made by the former minister and asked the staff concerned to stop such allotments in future.
Mr Qazi had directed that the General Waiting List (GWL) of government employees who were seeking official accommodation should strictly be followed.
The sources said the number of employees in the GWL in Islamabad had increased over 50,000, but the number of available government houses in the capital was only 15,000.
The official record of the Estate Office showed that a total of 25,554 government houses were available in the country and the total number of private houses hired by the Estate Office was stated to be 16,997.
The record of the Estate Office said the number of hired houses in Islamabad was 15,432 while 14,200 private houses had been hired by the Estate Office for government servants.
In Karachi, the number of government houses is stated to be 7,880 and some 1,322 private houses have been hired. Similarly, some 1,295 government houses are available in Lahore for government servants and the number of hired houses is 973.
According to the record of the Estate Office, 561 houses were available to the government employees in Peshawar while 280 were residing in hired accommodations.
The number of government houses in Quetta is 458 and some 522 private houses have been hired by the Estate Office.