ISLAMABAD - National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has launched probe into a number of alleged irregularities including illegal allotment of plots and illegal recruitments committed by Federal Government Employees Housing Foundation (FGEHF), The Nation has learnt.
Sources aware of the development informed that three directors of the Housing Foundation including Director Estate Shahid Nadeem, Director Administration Shahid Mahmood and Director Projects Zafar Ahmed Jappa appeared before the NAB investigators her on Friday to answer a number of questions about malpractices done by the Foundation. NAB had again asked them to again appear before it on February 26.
The documents available with The Nation reveal that the Foundation is facing a number of allegations of serious irregularities including illegal allotment of plots before the bureau’s investigators. The bureau, after initially scrutinizing the Housing Foundation’s record, has already written to the sitting Director General (DG) Housing Foundation to answer a comprehensive reply to all the allegations of malpractices.
According to the bureau’ initial probe, Director (Estate) FGEHF in 2013, while referring the 123rd meeting of Board of Housing Foundation, had written to Capital Development Authority (CDA) for allotments of more plots than the existing quota to the members of its Executive Committee in sectors D-12 and I-8 and later allegedly allotted these plots to some one else.
The DG Housing Foundation is facing the questions of NAB to apprise who empowered then Director (Estate) to write to CDA for allotment additional plots and then allotted without any rationale and reason to others.
The NAB has found enormous anomalies in the cancellation of plots in sectors G-13, G-14, I-8 and D-12 by the Housing Foundation (HF) as NAB investigations have found that a lot of plots in these sectors were cancelled and allotted on the same day by then DG Housing Foundation himself without the approval of the Secretary Housing/ Executive Committee that was the competent authority.
The probe reveals that DG Housing and Director (Estate) had been using their discretion based on own liking and disliking while allotting the plots as there were dozens of allottees whom Housing Foundation had issued provisional offer letters especially widows, who paid all dues, and later allotted plots to their favourites setting aside their seniority.
Housing Foundation allegedly mixed the decision of its 47th Board of Directors (BoD) meeting of Executive Committee (EC) with the EC 101 BoD meeting to give favour to the favourites and the case was never referred to EC for clarification.  The Foundations ‘s record shows that decisions of the chairman hardship committee were neither approved from the competent forum nor advertisement was made in the newspapers regarding the ballottement or cancellation of the plots under hardship quota.
The investigators have found that the reply of the Foundation regarding creation of additional plots in Sector G-14/3 was not based on facts and has sought a copy of NOC of CDA from the Foundation to know whether it approved HF’s request of creation of additional plots in the said sector. The Foundation is facing query of the bureau that under what law it continued allotting such created plots in the said sector when DG (Planning) CDA had disowned such creation.
The bureau has questioned the Foundations regarding appointments made in the foundation in BPS-5 to PBS-18 since January 1, 2009 because according to the probe, 65 posts were advertised in 2012-13 where had 80 people have been recruited in the Foundation during this period.
The NAB has concluded that the Foundation concealed information before its investigators as it did not exactly inform the bureau about the exact details of those widows whom plots were allotted in Sector I-8 from 2008 to 2013.
The bureau has shown its displeasure over the slow pace of internal inquiry being conducted by Foundation on the advise of NAB regarding unsafe investment made by it in different private funds. The bureau has noted with concern that no progress had been forwarded to it even after a lapse of four months. NAB has asked the DG Housing to submit a comprehensive report regarding the internal control mechanism that adopted by the Foundation to avoid the repeated performance and to plug the procedural loopholes in the regulatory framework of the Foundation and also brief what internal actions had been taken against the wrongdoers.