LAHORE: By manipulating official reports for getting NOCs, corrupt elements in the Lahore Development Authority (LDA) are causing huge financial loss to the national exchequer.
A unique scam, recently detected in the LDA, revealed ‘collaboration’ of corrupt officers/officials in Housing Directorates and Town Planning Wings who were jointly manipulating official reports for issuance of NOC by hiding the pending/outstanding dues of the properties.
Additional Director General (Housing) Owais Mushtaq detected the fraud while randomly inspecting some files in which he found that a NOC report with vague wording was sent to a Town Planning Wing by a Housing Directorate.
In response to the letter of the Housing Directorate, the Town Planning Directorate sent a response in which outstanding dues of the property were not mentioned whereas in real there were outstanding dues.
This kind of fraud was directly causing loss to the authority as no recovery was made while transferring a property and this practice was also generating a hidden financial burden on the person who was buying a property because he didn’t know about the remaining/outstanding dues of the property he was buying considering clear of all kind of liabilities.
After detecting the ongoing practice, the ADG (Housing) Owais Mushtaq wrote a letter (LDA/ADG(H)/PS/198) dated December 6, 2023 to all Director Housing and all Director Town Planning with a subject ‘general instructions regarding reports form town planning wing, LDA.’
In the letter, he wrote that it was observed that Housing Directorates do not get clear reports from Town Planning of LDA, before issuance of NOC. ‘Some files were checked randomly and found that files are just marked to TP Wing, which furnishes ambiguous reports. In some cases, pending dues are not mentioned while furnishing reports regarding the commercialisation of property, leading to the issuance of NOCs against those properties having balance dues of commercialisation,’ the letter stated.
The ADG (Housing) stated that this practice was causing a huge loss to the Authority. Therefore, in the interest of the Authority, it was directed that in the future, all Housing Directorates shall get clear reports from TP wing. In case of non-compliance, strict action would be taken against the officers concerned.
He also directed the Chief Town Planner (I) and Chief Town Planner (II) to ensure that clear reports will be furnished, mentioning the commercialisation (including annual commercial) status of the particular property and all kinds of pending dues against that property.
A senior LDA officer from Housing wing said the practice, if implemented in its true spirit, will save the authority as well as the property buyers from heavy financial loss and inconvenience respectively.
He suggested that as this fraud has come to the surface, a random internal audit of the NOC cases should be done and if other similar cases will be found then a complete and detailed audit of NOC cases should be carried out to figure out the financial loss occurred to the authority. He also suggested strict action against the officers/officials involved in this practice.
When contacted, ADG (Housing) Owais Mushtaq said that detecting this kind of fraud showed that the higher management of the authority was vigilant and taking matters seriously. He said strict departmental action would be taken against those who would not implement this order.