Poor presentation: CDA fails to attract attention of commercial investors

Capital Development Authority (CDA) placed 15 out of 35 commercial plots in developed sectors for auction at Jinnah Convention Centre Islamabad on the first day of auction on Tuesday.

The civic agency successfully managed to auction only 8 commercial plots on day first, due to poor presentation, bad management and pitiable advertisement. Seven plots have been deferred and CDA earned an amount of 3.75 billion rupees by auctioning 8 commercial plots in different developed sectors of capital. However, they were supposed to earn more than 4.5-5.0 billion from these plots.

Only 39 bidders participated in the auction, 8 commercial plots were auctioned while 7 plots were deferred by the authority due to low bid; the auction started on 11:30 AM and ended at 5 PM on Tuesday.

“First, the CDA auctions the plots for the construction of high rise buildings at higher price, then used to said the constructor to get the No-Objection Certificate (NOC) from Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) for the construction of high rise building, then approved the DVC, building plan by getting hefty bribe, how can any investor do investment in such an environment?,” said a businessmen named Imtiaz.

During the auction, the bidders criticised auction committee over poor presentation of commercial plots for auction which lacked the basic information about facilities like access to road, acquired land and starting bid by high price.

A nine member committee headed by CDA Finance Member Dr Fahad Aziz supervised the auction proceedings. Member (planning), DG(finance), DG (L&E), Deputy DG(law), Director (UP), public relations and estate management-II directors were the members of the committee.

While talking to Pakistan Today, business tycoon Hassan Malik said that the numbers of participants were less due to the higher cost, new taxes on property and CDA’s history of delaying tactics in the approval of DVCs and building plans of auctioned plots for construction.

While auction, a bidder started shouting at CDA urban planning director and other CDA officials, and alleged that they committed malpractices. He told the people present that they had a history of taking bribes from him. The CDA security director calmed him down and asked him to stop shouting.

Plot 8 of I-8 markaz was auctioned at 0.398 m per square yard, plot 4 of Marriage hall at 0.12 m per square yard, plot 4A of Diplomatic Enclave at G-5 t 0.57 m per square yard, plot 14-C at G-5 at 0.423 m per square yard, plot 11 of G-11/3 at 0.123 m per square yard, plot 5-A and 5-B of G-11/3 at 0.452 m per square yard and class III shopping mall of D-12/4 at 0.376 m per square yard.

Plot 9 of I-8, plot 3, 18, and 9 of D-12, plot 3-I and 3-J of D-12/3, plot 15 for farm house at Muree Road, plot 40-C at G-9 Markaz, plot 28 at G-11 Markaz, plot 3 and 4 for class III shopping mall at D-12/4 were deferred

“CDA failed to attract the intentions of business men. In 2014, one of the CDA commercial plots was auctioned at 0.72 m per square yard. All the investors participated in CDA auction 2016 are old, experienced and defaulters,” said an official of CDA, who wished not to be named.

CDA spent 1 million on advertisement of the auction of these plots.

The auction will be carried out today (Wednesday) as well and the CDA will try to sell out all of 35 commercial plots and generate the fund worth billions to survive another year.