ISLAMABAD: The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Wednesday asked the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to complete within six months investigations into the multi-billion-rupee land scam of the Railways Golf Club (RGC), Lahore, which has been pending for over five years.

The committee, headed by Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Syed Khursheed Ahmed Shah, directed the bureau to examine the role of three retired army generals and a former brigadier, who were at the helm of affairs in the Pakistan Railways (PR) in 2000 when it handed over possession of 140 acres of RGC to a private firm, M/S Maxcorp, at a throwaway price.

Pakistan Railways Secretary Parveen Agha told the PAC that retired Lt Gen Javed Ashraf Qazi, the-then railways minister, retired Lt Gen Saeed-uz-Zafar, former railways secretary, retired Lt Gen Hamid Hassan Butt, former PR general manager, and retired Brigadier Akhtar, former railways director, were responsible for the controversial land deal that caused Rs50 billion loss to the national exchequer, according to Mr Shah.

The railways ministry informed the PAC that out of its 167,690 acres of land, 4,178 acres had been encroached upon in the four provinces.

Army officers allegedly handed over 140 acres to private firm at throwaway price

According to PR data, 2,145 acres of land in Punjab, 252 acres in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 1,162 acres in Sindh and 619 acres in Balochistan had been encroached upon.

The PR officials said that 251 acres were being utilised for defence needs of the country, 10 acres by government departments and the rest of the land was taken away for commercial, residential and agricultural purposes.

Discussing the audit paragraph about the golf club in Lahore, the PAC wanted to know why PR had handed over possession of 140 acres to a private firm at a rate of only Rs4 per square yard, instead of Rs52 per square yard, by changing the figure from Rs21.6 million per annum to Rs2.16m per year, as has been mentioned in tender bid documents.

During renegotiations with M/S Maxcorp, the PR management extended the lease period from 33 years to 49 years, the report revealed.

It said that M/S Maxcorp was not even a party during the prequalification process and tender documents had not been issued to the private firm. The report concluded that M/S Maxcorp “prima facie has been unduly favoured over other bidders”.

The matter relating to the RGC was taken to the Supreme Court through a constitutional petition filed by Ishaq Khakwani in 2011 and the court had referred it to NAB for investigation in 2012.

During the PAC meeting, NAB Director Rizwan Khan informed the committee that investigation could not be completed because the bidding documents were missing from the PR records; subsequently the investigation team had to rely on photocopies of the documents.

Mr Shah expressed annoyance and said it was beyond his comprehension why NAB had not been able to complete the probe yet.

He directed the PR secretary to conduct a departmental inquiry on the RGC lease and submit a report to the PAC.

While a majority of the PAC members wanted to summon the-then PR minister and two other generals, Shafqat Mehmood defended the lease.

He claimed that the RGC was initially in a pathetic condition and the generals had turned it into a good recreational facility. He added that the officers were unnecessarily being dragged into the controversy.

Published in Dawn, July 27th, 2017