ISLAMABAD: The Directorate of Municipal Administration (DMA), instead of auctioning parking lots, is collecting fees itself amid allegations of corrupt practices.

“For the last several years, fees at our main parking lots, including the one adjacent to Centaurus and G-9 terminal, are being collected by the directorate,” an official of the DMA said.

He stressed the need for a proper inquiry into the collections and cash deposited into the DMA’s exchequer.

In 2022, during a special audit, massive irregularities were found in the self-collection method and a full-fledged inquiry was recommended to fix responsibility. Subsequently, in July 2022, an inquiry committee was constituted, but it failed to fix responsibility.

Audit report points towards irregularity; findings of inquiry being delayed

The audit of several projects was conducted by a special CDA team headed by the then-audit officer, Rao Shahid Pervez, which unearthed massive irregularities and corruption.

The team had been tasked with carrying out a special audit into the collection of fees at Shakarparian and Daman-i-Koh car parking during the last two years.

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The audit report had revealed that officials got parking ticket books printed from a local market and were neither taken into stock nor were numbers mentioned in them.

The auditors said due to the market-printed books, it was difficult for them to check the daily collection of parking fees and its remittance to the CDA and Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad (MCI). They said the books were printed without the approval of the competent authority.

“The books should have been issued with the signature of an authorised officer. Unfortunately, there is no record available about the books in the office of the DMA. The matter has been discussed with the staff concerned and they admitted that the record was not maintained which was a serious financial irregularity,” the audit report said.

“The maintenance of a stock register of the ticket books is the basic requirement to check the parking fee receipt without which the exact collection could not be ascertained.

“Details of receipts and expenditures are not available or maintained. No record regarding the payment of salaries and other expenditures was maintained and all expenditure was incurred without the approval of the competent authority. The payment of parking sites expenditure directly from the parking receipts is a serious financial irregularity which shows loose financial discipline in the DMA which requires proper justification,” the report added.

The inquiry report of 2022 had stated that a previous contractor of Centaurus car parking had to pay Rs30 million but not a single notice was issued to him by the DMA office for recovery of the amount.

“The DMA management managed the sites of car parking without any standard operating procedure. There is no record maintained for the printing of ticket books, which basically caused less recovery,” it said.

The audit report observed that there was no transparency in the recovery of parking fee due to which the authority sustained a loss of Rs82.34 million,“ the audit report read.

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The DMA took over possession of G-9 bus stand on Sept 8, 2021 and of the Centaurus parking space on June 24, 2021. The report said there were 19 kiosks in the G-9 bus stand and two in the parking at Centaurus which were given on rent to the general public without approval of the competent authority.

“The rent of these kiosks are received by the DMA staff but not deposited into the CDA accounts. This is a clear-cut loss to the authority which required proper inquiry at an appropriate level,” the report added.

The audit also pointed out that an amount of Rs170 million was recoverable from the contractor of the G-9 stand but no effort was made in this regard.

Following the said explosive audit report, the MCI and CDA had formed an inquiry committee, but the outcome is yet to come to the surface.

When contacted, a senior officer of the DMA said due to some technical reasons, the directorate was collecting the fees itself. However, he said the matter was going to be resolved soon as the DMA had signed an agreement with a private firm some six months ago to start smart online collection.

Published in Dawn, August 15th, 2024