ISLAMABAD, Dec 12: Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf has asked the Capital Development Authority (CDA) to brief him on the city’s development projects, Dawn has learnt.

“We have prepared a presentation for the prime minister,” CDA spokesman Ramzan Sajid said confirming the request. “It is about our ongoing development projects,” he said, declining to share the details, not even the date set for the briefing.However, the prime minister’s request looked surprising, if not intriguing, as neither the CDA has much to show nor is the premier in a position to give what the CDA needs most – funds to speed up the slow work on whatever it is doing.

Spokesman Sajid though bravely claimed that despite the financial constraints, the current leadership of CDA is managing all the projects well.

Normally, there would be nothing suspicious about the prime minister taking interest in the development of Islamabad as before moving to the Prime Minister’s House he had been living in Sector F-8. But many think it significant that he got interested in the affairs of the city soclose to the general elections.

“May be he is eying some constituency in the city for someone,” suggested a PPP worker, not willing to give his name.

His brother Raja Imran Ashraf could be that ‘someone’ as his face has been greeting residents from posters in the localities of the city which form NA-48 constituency of the National Assembly.

Then there is also the possibility of local bodies elections being held in Islamabad.

Meanwhile, the CDA hierarchy is busy to showcase its development projects, most of which are stalled for want of money or settlement in courts.

CDA Chairman Syed Tahir Shahbaz is likely to brief Prime Minister Pervez Ashraf “at length about the pace and cost of work on the ongoing projects and also those in limbo”, according to CDA sources.