Billions
lost in misuse of army grabbed lands: Official Report
By
Rauf Klasra
ISLAMABAD: While the dust of land grabbing stories of the Army
is still to settle, official reports have come to light to show
how the grabbed lands are being misused and mismanaged, incurring
losses running into billions of rupees.
None
other than the Director General of Audit of the Defence Services
has issued a report, after a random check of 4 out of 11 military
estate offices and he found close to Rs 5 billion loss caused
by misuse of land, mismanagement and encroachments. View
Report Page1 | Page2
“The
report is an outright indictment of the military as it not only
shows the monumental size of the lands acquired, but even the
losses being cause are gigantic, compared to peanuts for which
politicians are persecuted day in and day out,” an analyst
said.
The
report says out of the 11 MEOs all over the country, four located
at Lahore, Sargodha, Gujranwala and Multan were selected at random
for an audit exercise conducted in 2000-2001. Irregularities involving
loss of Rs 4,885.249 have been pointed out with 10 cases of misuse
of land totaling over Rs 3 billion, 4 cases of encroachments costing
over Rs 840 million and 9 cases of mismanagement incurring a loss
of over Rs 550 million.
“There
is a need to investigate each case to fix responsibility for various
irregularities and loss to public exchequer,” the Defence
Services report strongly recommends, adding that “Disciplinary
action may be initiated against those held responsible.”
It
recommends that “Rules, Regulations, Order and Instructions
should be strictly followed in letter and spirit so that irregularities
are restricted to the minimum.”
So
far there is hardly any indication that the military has started
any action against those who caused the loss of billions in just
four cities. “What would be the situation in Karachi and
Rawalpindi, the two biggest military establishments,” an
analyst asked.
This
scam is going to run into billions of rupees with no one ever
knowing about what happened, who gobbled up what and who was responsible.
