ISLAMABAD: The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Wednesday took strict notice of poor arrangements of cleanness in the Federal Lodges established in Quetta, Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar.
The PAC meeting was held under the chairmanship of Leader of the Opposition in National Assembly Syed Khurshid Shah. Among others, the meeting was attended by MNAs Shahida Akhtar, Abdul Manan, Navid Qamar, Ashiq Hussain Gopang, Shafqat Mahmood, Arif Alvi, Senators Sherry Rehman, Azam Khan Swati, Ministry of Housing secretary and other concerned officials.
The committee observed that despite spending more money on projects, the output was not satisfactory.
Senator Azam Swati said that the amount was being spent without proper channel and planning. He informed the committee that scraped steel was being used in the Federal Lodges’ buildings.
In his briefing, Housing and Works secretary said, “We have no money for laundry in lodges.”
He demanded that the grant should be allocated in the upcoming budget to overcome this problem.
Syed Khurshid Shah said that every year 25 per cent of development budget was wasted due to poor management and lack of proper planning.
The committee said that the contractor of Housing Foundation was demanding additional Rs 550 million, while around 3000 employees were affected since 2009.
The Housing Foundation officials said that the contractor had received Rs 2 billion so far out of total Rs 3 billion.
They said that despite the payment of 70 per cent of the total amount, they were neither developing land nor were they providing a route.
They said that according to the contract, the contractor had to develop the land and was also bound to provide a route to the residents. They informed that NAB had closed the case in this regard.
The PAC demanded the NAB inquiry report to be presented to the committee on February 27.
