Institutionalised corruption

Allotment of plots to federal government employees

Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf has directed the CDA chairman to discard the policy of allotting plots to officers coming on deputation to the authority. Ostensibly, during the briefing by the CDA chairman, he realised that that policy was discriminatory, unfair and smacked of a corrupt practice and needed to be discontinued. Well done, Raja sahib, for throwing the first stone to curb this institutionalised corruption. CDA is the most corrupt entity in the capital which has acted as a conduit not only for obliging politicians, bureaucrats, judges and even journalists by successive governments through allotment of plots at throwaway prices (having market value in millions), using discretionary powers, but also the it has been favouring its own employees and officers coming on deputation under the cover of rules framed by it to facilitate such dole outs.

The allotment of plots to the officers on deputation is in fact a big land grabbing scam from which officers belonging to a particular service group have benefited by manoeuvring their postings to the authority for three years. Even the policy of allotment of plots to its own employees is contrary to the policy of allotment of plots to the government employees on the basis of seniority in age in different categories by the Federal Government Employees Housing Society (FGEHS) – a naked injustice reflecting double standards.

There is also an imperative need to look into the affairs of the FGEHS and Pakistan Housing Authority (PHA) on top priority basis. FGEHS, like CDA, also has a policy of allotting plots to its employees and officials posted on deputation. People with connections have extensively benefited from this detestable and unjust institutionalised corrupt practice. The Society was established only for the federal government employees but plots have been allotted to judges, parliamentarians, journalists and other people in the sectors opened by successive governments as favours, depriving deserving employees of the federal government of their legitimate rights.

Another very serious flaw in the policy of FGEHS is that it is not based on justice and fair play as it does not ensure allotment of plots to each and every government employee even by adopting the principle of allotment on the basis of seniority in age. The reason is that the FGEHS housing sectors have been launched with a gap of 5-8 years. The people retiring during the time between the launch of the schemes, who have not been lucky to have plots allotted during their service, are deprived of any chance of getting them ever. Although a very small quota is given to the retired employees, not all of them can benefit from this. There are thousands of them who have retired and died without getting a plot. It is a kind of lottery which only lucky people can benefit from. It is against the norms of justice and also smacks of double standards considering the fact that each army officer is assured of a plot or a house when he retires.

These are all corrupt practices and need to be eliminated without further delay. Allotments to the employees and people coming on deputation must also be stopped forthwith and they be allotted plots on the basis of their seniority in age as is done for the other government employees. The policy of allotments to people other than the federal government employees in the housing schemes of FGHES must be discarded immediately. It should be made mandatory for the FGEHS to ensure that each and every government employee gets the plots on the basis of seniority in age and those who have already retired and are still alive without getting any plot, are obliged on priority basis before conferring this benefit on the serving employees. Quotas should be abolished and like army it should be made mandatory to allot plot to each and every federal government employee.

The affairs of the Pakistan Housing Authority also need to be scrutinised. The authority has launched a scheme of allotting constructed houses to the officers of the occupational groups belonging to CSS. The prices for the lowest category to the highest category are between 8.5 million rupees to 15 million rupees. One really fails to understand how a government employee who has served honestly and relied on only the emoluments during his service can accumulate that kind of money to pay for the houses being offered by the Authority. Is the authority working on the assumption that each and every officer has been corrupt and might have enough to pay for the house contemplated to be allotted to him?

In fact, this is a big scam whose beneficiaries will be the functionaries of the PHA and the contractors who will get the lucrative deals to construct these houses. My understanding is that many of the officers who have been offered these houses have not availed the offer as they could not afford it. There is no justification for the establishment of this authority as its schemes are benefiting only a very few of the government employees. Furthermore, in the presence of FGEHS, it makes no sense to have a parallel organisation. The best course would be to abolish this authority and allot only plots to the government employees through FGEHS in accordance with a judicious and fair policy.

The presidents and prime ministers have also been using their discretionary powers to allot plots to government employees and their staff irrespective of their length of service and seniority which is again a very serious mode of corruption. This corrupt practice of turning the paupers into millionaires overnight can be checked through abolishing the discretionary powers of the president and prime minister.

Another very undesirable institutionalised corruption in regards to allotment of plots has been the policy of obliging the federal secretaries with two plots, a policy adopted by the Musharraf regime on a summary moved by the top level bureaucracy to reward themselves on the pattern of allotment of lands to the generals. It is however heartening to note that the Public Accounts Committee has taken a serious note of this malpractice and corruption and has made recommendations to the government to discard this policy forthwith. The recommendations must be accepted without any reservations. Raja sahib has set the stone rolling and he must do more before making exit, by eliminating the above corrupt practices in the best traditions of PPP to take radical and revolutionary policy initiatives. This might help in curbing corruption in other spheres of national life through its spill over affect.

The writer is an academic.