ISLAMABAD-At the time when fiscal space is shrinking in the country, millions of rupees are being robbed monthly on the name of self-collection in the Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad due to its failure to auction revenue collection contracts. 
Sources informed that at present the municipal officers did self-collection and resorted to alleged corruption at car parking near Centaurus and at G-9 bus terminal.
It is pertinent to mention here that a special audit in this regard was conducted in March 2022, which unearthed a financial embezzlement of the millions of rupees but instead of taking corrective measures, the entire hierarchy has become silent spectator. 
Though, DMA ‘apparently’ attempted to auction these sites but remained unsuccessful. Insiders say that some elements are beneficiaries of the self-collection system and they don’t want to do transparent auction, therefore, for one reason or the other they have been delaying the auction.
Latest attempt in this regard was made in May 2022 by DMA when they failed to get desired bids. The city managers offered G-9 bus stand and parking space near iconic Centaurus Mall to private contractors for their smooth functioning and operations against net guaranteed revenue.
However, only two firms participated in an open auction in this regard whereas they also gave bids less than the reserved price.
The reserved price for each site was about Rs.100 million annually but the bidders quoted only Rs.60 million for each site. Resultantly, the auction process remained unsuccessful—leaving the sites on self-collection that was already being carried out by the staff of DMA.
It is pertinent to mention here that the DMA took over possession of G-9 bus stand on Sept 8, 2021 and of Centaurus parking space on June 24, 2021. The municipal officers instead of auctioning the sites properly preferred to do self-collection through its own staff.
Sources claimed that every month millions of rupees are being robbed and fact can be substantiated if one compares figures of self-collection with the amount of last respective contracts.
They claimed that the revenue collected by DMA staff is just ‘peanuts’ as the number of vehicles have been increased but their revenue is declining because a major portion is being pocketed by individuals with the backing of high ups.
Meanwhile, it has been learnt reliably that besides the tall claims of the Administrator MCI Irfan Nawaz Memon to install electronic entry and exit doors last year, the initiative has yet to be materialized.
The Nation has tried to get the response of the Director DMA Yasir Farhad and sent him specific questions in this regard but he did not respond till filling of this story.
Mr. Farhad is a grade-18 officer of Office Management Group and he is considered as a blue eyed officer of the former Chairman CDA Capitan Noor ul Amin Mengal as he was first posted as his Director Staff but later moved to the high profile position of the Director DMA.   
The DMA was part of CDA but after formation of the Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad (MCI) it was placed under the administrative control of the latter and since then it is under spotlight for mismanagement and embezzlements.