-Civic authority owed millions of rupees
ISLAMABAD: Non-recovery of security advances, receivables, fees and taxes have caused revenue losses worth millions of rupees to the already cash-starved Capital Development Authority (CDA) that has been running its day to day affairs by selling commercial plots twice a year.
According to documents available with Pakistan Today, the secured advance of Rs 189 million was paid to the contractor of which Rs 174 million was recovered in the construction of 104 additional family suites for parliamentarians including a servant quarters block. This resulted in the non-recovery of secured advance amounting to Rs15.109 million.
The non-recovery was a consequence of weak internal controls and inadequate oversight mechanism for enforcing relevant rules and regulations. When the audit pointed out the missing funds, the authority replied that the recovery had been made, however, no proof was shown to the audit in this regard.
Furthermore, non-recovery of room rent and utility charges of hostels and lodges maintained by CDA has caused a further dent of Rs11 million.
Documents available with Pakistan Today show that over Rs 0.7 million from family suites of government hostels, over Rs 0.9 million from single rooms of government hostels, Rs1.9 million from CDA Officer Hostels, Rs2.9 million in arrears of Parliament Lodges utilities, Rs2.2 million in arrears of the Parliament Lodges cafeteria and Rs1.8 million in rent of the government hostels cafeteria has remained outstanding.
It is pertinent to mention here that is the departmental controlling officers’ duty to see that all outstanding payments to the government are regularly and promptly assessed, realised and duly credited in the public account.
As previously reported by this paper, CDA’s Revenue Directorate has failed to recover an outstanding due of Rs1.9 billion on account of property tax, water and allied charges from various residential buildings, commercial buildings, educational institutions offices and other entities.
During the scrutiny of allotment files, the audit also observed that auction ledger accounts was missing an amount of Rs5.8 billion on account of premium against a lessee who failed to deposit the installment of plots as per payment schedule.
