ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly (NA) Standing Committee on House and Library expressed its displeasure over the absence of the chairman and member engineering, Capital Development Authority (CDA) from the committee meeting and postponed the agenda items related to CDA, in protest.
Deputy Speaker NA, Murtaza Javed Abbasi chaired the meeting of the NA body on house and library held in the parliament house on Wednesday.
The committee decided to issue notices to both the officers to explain why they did not attend the meeting.
The committee was informed that chairman and member CDA could not attend the meeting due to a hearing in the supreme court of Pakistan, however, the committee was of the view that even if they had to appear before the Apex Court, they should have timely informed the committee.
The members of the committee said that the discussion of agenda related to CDA would be an exercise in futility in the absence of responsible CDA officers.
The deputy speaker lamented about the non-serious attitude of CDA in the implementation of the committee’s decisions and decided to invite the minister of state for capital administration and development division (CADD) in the next meeting of the committee. He said that CDA had misled the committee during the last four years and failed to implement most of the decisions made by the committee.
While discussing the progress on handing over the remaining development plots to the members of the National Assembly Employees Cooperative Society (NAECHS) by the Federal Employees Cooperative Housing Society (FECHS), the committee expressed annoyance over the delaying tactics used by FECHS in the implementation of a joint venture between FECHS and NAECHS.
The committee was of the view that FECHS was supposed to hand over plots to all members of NAECHS who had deposited full payment of plots. The deputy speaker said that administration of the FECHS had also been trying to hide behind the stay order of the court for the last four years instead of implementing the agreement of joint venture. He said the hard-earned savings of the employees of the national assembly were stuck up with FECHS for the last several years and the precious land of NAECHS, which was transferred to FECHS through a joint venture agreement, had been disposed of by the FECHS.
The deputy speaker directed the national assembly secretariat to write a letter to the chief justice of the high court of Islamabad on the behalf of the house and library committee with the request for issuance of directions for implementation of the agreement of joint venture signed between FECHS and NAECHS.
The meeting was attended by MNAs Malik Ibrar Ahmed, Mian Muhammad Rasheed, Mr Aqib Ullah Khan, Dr Mahreen Razzaque Bhutto, Mr Mehboob Alam and senior officers of National Assembly Secretariat, CDA and Cabinet Division.