CDA member administration asks FIA to stop inquiry into illegal appointments

BY BILAL SABRI

• Official says authority trying to sweep matter under carpet

ISLAMABAD: Capital Development Authority (CDA) wrote a letter to Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to halt the on-going inquiry into illegal promotions at CDA and stated that it would carry out an inquiry into the matter after the previous one revealed that only one out of over 1,000 promotions was made following rules and regulations, it emerged on Sunday.

An FIA official said that CDA Member Administration Yasir Pirzada, in his early days in the authority, had vowed that he’ll not spare any official involved in illegal promotions. So he ordered an inquiry into the matter following an audit report which mentioned that thousands of illegal up-gradations cost over Rs3 billion to the national exchequer.

Moreover, fact findings revealed in July last year that 99.9 per cent promotions were illegal and out of term, the official added.

Making this inquiry report as additional evidence, the FIA was then about to conclude its investigation and was ready to register an FIR against influential CDA employees who were involved in this matter or were the beneficiaries. However, the member administration took a U-turn and wrote a subsequent letter to the FIA.

“All of a sudden, Yasir Pirzada wrote a letter to the agency saying that the authority would carry out its inquiry again,” said FIA official requesting anonymity.

In the letter, it was informed that the CDA would constitute a new committee with BS-19 and BS-20 officers as its members, who will give a time-period to conclude the inquiry into illegal promotions and upgradations. The committee was not constituted so far despite the passage of eight months, FIA official said.

“Till now, no inquiry committee was constituted by the CDA high-ups to probe the matter, which indicates that the authority is trying to swipe this matter under the carpet, or is buying some time,” he claimed.

“With this double game, the member administration made an impression on the general public that he took action against illegally promoted officials but in reality, he jeopardised the entire authority. With his subsequent letter, he gave life to the employee’s on ‘death-beds’,” said a CDA official requesting anonymity.

It is pertinent to mention that the previous CDA inquiry concluded by three CDA officials observed that only one case of change of cadre of Ali Murtaza was done after due observations of rules and regulations and all other cases of up-gradation/re-designation were made without observing the laid down procedures, and that too on a pick and choose basis,” the inquiry report said.

“The fact-finding committee recommended that all the illegal up-gradations and re-designations may be de-notified,” read the inquiry report.

The report was compiled by a three-member committee in June last year headed by Ejaz Ahmed Siddiqui, who has since retired, and including Admin Officer Aftab Saleem and Public Relations Director Mazhar Hussain.

The Supreme Court had also declared that there was no room for out-of-turn promotions and up-gradation of posts.

It may be mentioned that earlier, the three-member committee revealed that they were only able to get 46 files as the human resource department did not hand over employees’ personal files to them. Therefore, out of 46 cases, they found only one in which the rules and regulations were followed.

The member of this committee, requesting anonymity, said that despite several formal notices sent to CDA’s HR Directorate and informal requests, they did not hand over the personal files of most of the employees.

“Either the HR Directorate was reluctant because of CDA’s then employee union secretary’s pressure, or personal files were not available with the directorate as the employee’s managed to get their them from HR and were able to hide them,” said CDA official.

Several attempts were made to contact CDA’s spokesperson Malik Saleem but he was not available for the comment and the member administrations mobile phone was switched off.