Another scam hits DMA, record missing

Abdullah Malik

ISLAMABAD: In a fresh move another mega corruption scam hits the Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad (MCI) directorate the District Municipal Authority (DMA) as official record of millions of rupees corruption missing while the top bosses of the city were not aware about the whereabouts of the files spotlighting alleged corruption in various projects.

According to details the Local Government Com-mission (LGC) formed committee in their first meeting seeks the official record of Base Transmission System (BTS) tower as well other advertising projects of the DMA but the authorities failed to provide the concerned record to the committee.

It should be noted here that a corruption scam in advertising projects in Islamabad surfaced last year in the municipal department but later the scam was putted under the carpet and no action was taken against the alleged accused till yet.

A three member committee comprised of Tayyaba Ibrahim, Ali Bukhari and Shafaq Hashmi meets and inquired about different projects pertaining under DMA and called Director DMA Zaffar Iqbal and Magistrate Revenue Saad Bin Asad to appear before an inquiry committee but they failed to provide the record of around 500 million rupees to the inquiry committee.

The committee member enraged on authorities and added that the inquiry committee finding highlighted that the BTS tower tax recovery record is missing from office and influential bosses stolen the said record to bury the mega scam but we will turn every stone to reach the real accused. The committee added that their finding found that illegal mobile towers installed in Islamabad and bribes were received by the top bosses in scam. The committee members added that auction of various projects was not done since many years due to which the national exchequer faced a huge financial loss.

The committee inquired from Magistrate revenue regarding non-recovery of around 70 million rupees from (AD Zone, Impact Neon Signs) and other defaulter companies on wh-ich the magistrate replied that no recovery case was forwarded to the magistrate of revenue according to the record in past one year adding that some cases of recoveries were forwarded but their whereabouts including locations and contact number were fake that’s why the recoveries are still pending.

When contacted Director DMA Zaffar Iqbal regarding the inquiry committee findings he told The Frontier Post that I provided all record of my tenure but some cases are of 2012 and onward and at that time I was not heading the municipal administration. He negates the claims that the official record stolen from the directorate.

The committee members shows reservations on the responses of the official appeared before the committee and mentioned that if the record was not provided to the committee the scam will be handed over to corruption watchdogs and investigating agencies.