On the directions of Supreme Court (SC) of Pakistan, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has started a ‘forensic audit’ of all the registered and unregistered housing societies across the country to detect fraud, embezzlement and duplicate allotments.
‘Apex court had directed the FIA to investigate the matter that why more and more people are approaching courts regarding various practices currently rampant in housing societies like forged documents, allotment letters, expensive land and possession of one land to dozens of people which never exists,’ said FIA official while requesting anonymity.
He further said, ‘SECP has provided a list of 1846 registered housing societies including 440 in Karachi, 656 in Islamabad, 45 in Peshawar, and 705 in Lahore; however, there are almost a total of 5100 registered housing societies working across Pakistan,’ adding that there are also more than 35,000 unregistered and illegal housing societies.
Interestingly, Azad Jammu Kashmir (AJK) secretary had categorically refused to nominate any focal person and provide data of housing societies saying AJK did not come under the territorial jurisdiction of Supreme Court of Pakistan; therefore they cannot entertain FIA officials in this regard.
According to the documents, available with Pakistan Today, so far, Islamabad and Balochistan have provided details of total number of societies working in their territories. However, Punjab, Sindh, FATA and GB are preparing record and would submit it to FIA in coming weeks.
FIA will investigate that inspection of land register to verify the status of land purchased, scrutiny of agreement of land purchase to ensure terms and conditions of the agreements, enforcement of agreement of purchase of land within prescribed time, verification of land transferred from mutation and relevant evidences, examine gardawarreport to ensure possession of land transferred in the name of society, assessment regarding area of land purchased falls within the area of scheme of the society or not, assessment of necessary prior and post approvals as per law, verification of NOC ensure PPRA rules compliance while selecting contractors, assessment and analysis of running bills in line of the BOQ’s as per agreement, examine survey evaluation report for quantity, quality and price of development work, verification of payments made to contractors, ensure and examination of layout plan (LOP), examine whether allotments issued in accordance with the provision of governing rules or not, examine reconciliation of allotment issued viz a viz land purchased and transferred in the name of society along with LOP, ensure no duplicate allotment has been issued, assessment of cancelation of allotment and subsequent status, and assessment of list of affectees and management plans to accommodate in near future.
The director general has nominated director FIA Islamabad zone as focal person to arrange a meeting with all stake holders from NAB, Registrar Housing Societies, Islamabad, Commissioner ICT, Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) Rawalpindi, Law and Justice Division, Law Department Government of Punjab, District collector Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Revenue Department Government of Punjab, for devising strategy and suggesting legal measures for tackling the menace in the society.
Subsequently, FIA has enrolled Institute of Chartered Accountants of Pakistan (ICAP), and asked them to recommend authentic, well-reputed and competent auditors and companies, following which ICAP had submitted list of top 114 practicing firms having satisfactory QCR rating in accordance with the international standards.
FIA gave a choice to all housing societies to choose auditors on their expenses for forensic audit of their yearly audit – which has already been public and there is no chance to forge, change any figure.
Auditors would further investigate and analyze the audit report year-wise and mark irregularities, embezzlements and fraud.
FIA has issued forms and sought information from housing societies, in which name of housing society, status of registered/ unregistered, official address, names of members of management committee with designation and contact numbers, total number of members, total area of land purchased/ in possession, name of regulatory body, NOC obtained/ LOP approved, stage of development, total plots/ allotted plots, and either project has completed or incomplete.
