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New Islamabad Airport graft: Civil Aviation Division reluctant to share officials’ names with Senate panel

By Asim Yasin
January 17, 2019

ISLAMABAD: The officials of the Civil Aviation Division (SAD) are reluctant to share with the subcommittee of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) the names of those officials found involved in the corruption in construction of the New Islamabad Airport in three inquiry reports.

The investigations of the corruption in the New Islamabad Airport was going on since the last five years, but, due to bureaucratic hurdles, the bureaucracy failed to name those officials who were involved in mega corruption that raised the increase in the construction cost from Rs37 billion to Rs105 billion.

The PAC subcommittee held its meeting on Wednesday with its Convener Syed Fakhar Imam in the chair in which, the DG Audit gave briefing on the New Islamabad Airport. The subcommittee has sought the inquiry report of the NAB on New Islamabad Airport from the NAB.

It was told to the subcommittee that the project was inaugurated in 2007 while its PC-1 was approved in 2008 with the cost of Rs37 billion while the PC-1 was revised in 2014, and its cost increased to Rs81 billion from Rs37 billion but again another revision was made in 2018 and cost increased from Rs81billion to Rs105 billion.

The PAC subcommittee was informed that the consultancy of the project was given to an American firm, Louis Berger, and the flaws were detected in the design and three inquiries were conducted in this regard.

The subcommittee was told that first inquiry was conducted by Lt Gen (R) Shah, second by FIA DG and third by Wapda ex-Chairman Shamsul Mulk, and, now, it should be asked from the Civil Aviation that who were responsible for it, and what action was taken against them. The Civil Aviation officials made the issue more complex with requesting the committee that they wanted to give briefing on through slides. The members of the committee said that then they should provide the hard copy before the briefing.

The PAC subcommittee Chairman Syed Fakhar Imam said the copies have been provided now, and they did not examine it due to which members were worried. “It’s better we take a break of 15 minutes to discuss it,” he said.

When the session of the committee started after 15-minutes break then instead of replying the questions of the members, the officials of the Civil Aviation started briefing and repeated the same facts which were already briefed by the DG Audit.

In their briefing, the Civil Aviation officials neither tolled the names of those officials who were held responsible in the inquiries nor tolled what action was taken against them. The officials told the subcommittee of the PAC that those who were held responsible went into the court with the plea that they were held responsible in the inquiries without hearing them.

When opinion of the Pakistan Engineering Council chairman was sought, he termed the whole affairs as an intellectual corruption and said if the forensic audit was conducted then there will be no need to conduct inquiries and if the real estimates were made in the P-1 then there will be no need for revision of the PC-1 arises. When the PAC subcommittee chairman asked from NAB about the inquires, its officials replied that it (NAB) has received three audit paras out of the four for the investigations, which is still going on. The PAC subcommittee Chairman, Syed Fakhar Imam, directed NAB to present its inquiry report and findings on this issue within two-weeks time.