—Information sought on various levels
ISLAMABAD: On the directions of Supreme Court (SC) of Pakistan, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has started a ‘forensic audit’ of all registered and unregistered housing societies across the country to detect fraud, embezzlement and duplicate allotments due to which many people have suffered.
“Apex court directed FIA to investigate the matter as to why people were approaching courts regarding various practices currently rampant in housing societies like forged documents, allotment letters, expensive land and giving of possession of one land to nonexistent people,” said an official of FIA while requesting anonymity.
He further said that “SECP has provided a list of 1,846 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.
Therefore, the federal agency has been given the task to investigate the matter and recommend strict policies and regulations to the court within the given time so that no housing society can defraud people at large in the future.
The objective of a forensic audit of all the societies is to ascertain the core reasons of deteriorating performance of societies, detection of embezzlement, to fix responsibility for mismanagement and to suggest the course of remedial actions to be taken to improve the performance of societies.
Curiously, secretary of Azad Jammu Kashmir (AJK) had categorically refused to nominate any focal person and provide data of housing societies, saying that AJK does not come within 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 a total number of societies working in their territories. However, Punjab, Sindh, FATA, and GB are preparing record and would submit it to FIA in the coming weeks.
FIA will investigate that inspection of the land register to verify the status of land purchased and scrutinise agreement of land purchase to ensure terms and conditions of the agreements, and the various ins and outs of the entire process.
It also includes detection of fraud, overall operational governance of management, their weaknesses, loopholes, inefficiencies, and pilferages that cause financial loss to the stakeholders, and to suggest ways and methods to curb malpractices and the possibility of frauds in future.
SC on May 17 had directed FIA DG to constitute a joint audit team (JAT) to conduct forensic analysis, submit its report within three months in which it has to recommend a strict policy, make separate laws, amend the existing laws for punishment of the accused involved in fraud and cheating in the housing societies, and also take action against such culprits.
The director general has nominated Islamabad FIA director as focal person to arrange a meeting with all stake holders from NAB, Registrar Housing Societies, Islamabad ICT Commissioner, Rawalpindi Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE),
Law and Justice Division, Law Department Government of Punjab, Islamabad district collector, Revenue Department Government of Punjab, for devising a 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 a list of the top 114 practising firms having a satisfactory rating in accordance with the international standards.
FIA gave a choice to all housing societies to choose auditors on their expenses for a forensic audit of their yearly audit, which has already been public and there is no chance to forge or change any figure.
Auditors would further investigate and analyse the audit report year-wise and mark irregularities, embezzlements and fraud.
Two meetings in this regard were attended by key officers and nominated focal persons of all provinces.
The first meeting was held on June 26 and second was conducted on July 18.
FIA has issued forms and sought pertinent information from various housing societies, including status of registered and unregistered, official address, names of members of management committee with designation and contact numbers, total number of members, total area of land purchased or in possession, name of regulatory body, stage of development, total plots and allotted plots, and whether the project is completed or incomplete.
It is noted that Justice Gulzar Ahmed and Justice Dost Muhammad Khan of SC decided that the petition filed by Muhammad Khalid which made NAB and district administrators respondents, directed FIA to undertake the said forensic audit.
