ISLAMABAD - Pakistan Sports Complex has become a huge security threat to the capital security, as more than 600 outsiders have been residing inside Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) premises since long and there is absolutely no official data available of all these illegal occupants.

Acting Director General Khaqan Babar, who hardly bothers to perform his official duties and keeps on lingering day-to-day affairs, has ordered to provide him the list of the persons residing in the PSB. According to the list prepared so far, around 647 persons, who have nothing to do with the PSB, nor they are employees or even relatives of PSB employees, have been residing inside the PSB since along with their families.

The most interesting thing to note here that is these are the persons, who have no relation with the PSB, while the actual number of illegal occupants is more than 1000, as PSB employees have made it an habit of keeping their near and dear ones with them in the official residences and to make things further worse, they never bother to provide their details. Their families are also enjoying free electricity, gas and other facilities, which none other government employees could have dreamt about.

The issue has been raised time and again by this scribe that the PSB employees have been enjoying official residences despite taking monthly rent allowances and have illegally grabbed lands in front of their allocated houses and constructed illegal rooms, while they have installed at least two to three air conditioned, electricity heaters, electric geysers, free water connections and they are only paying a meager amount of Rs 500 each for electricity and sui gas bills, while they are enjoying rest of the facilities free of cost. No heed was paid in this regard as PSB annually pays a whopping Rs 40 million for electricity and around Rs 30 million gas bills.

The sources inside the PSB on the condition of anonymity have confirmed to The Nation that last month Rs 4.7 million gas bill and Rs 4 million electricity bill was paid. This is a routine practice, as PSB employees don’t bother to switch off electricity heaters even they are not at their residences. The complaints were made with the concerned Director Generals, Deputy Director Generals, IPC Ministers, IPC Secretaries, but no one bothered to take action and stop waste of national wealth.

Pakistan Sports Complex is located at a very sensitive place, as a number of top installations, including parliament, Senate, Supreme Court building, PM and President Houses, embassies and other high-profile buildings are just a few minute drive. If any untoward incident happens, who will be held responsible? Why PSB security staff is keeping mum on this issue of grave importance? Why former DGs never tried to check the illegal occupants presence at the PSB premises.

At one end, the Acting DG is unmoved and doesn’t bother to sign daily routine documents, which resulted in salaries’ delay, as he was demanding his Rs 12,000 first for holding additional DG PSB charge to sign the salary list, while he kept on lingering on the highly sensitive issue of monthly pensions of retired employees, which kept on pending with his office for around two months. Finally on IPC Minister Dr Fahmida Mirza’s action, he signed the pensioners’ salaries.

The PSB is not paying meager annual grants to the affiliated federations citing PM Task Force is yet to submit recommendations, but Task Force headed by Eshan Mani has other very important areas to look after so they don’t have time for suffering athletes and federations.

The PSB is presenting deserted look for last one year or so, as not a single training camp was established. Now the IPC Minister is in her office for more than 4 months. She has just long plans but in reality, she doesn’t have time to address to the root causes. Instead of wasting time for something worse happens, the IPC Minister must wake up and order action against not only illegal outsiders but also against the PSB employees for keeping an army of their relatives illegally.

When this scribe met with Director Media M Azam Dar to seek his points of view in this regard, he said: “It is true that the illegal occupants have been living in the PSB since long. Since long the camps are not being held with the exception of volleyball camp, which started on January 8. The IPC Minister is informed about this and she will take prompt action.