Islamabad - Acting Speaker National Assembly Murtaza Javed Abbasi yesterday expressed annoyance over long delay in construction of additional family suites and servant quarters for accommodation of parliamentarians and their staff.
“Due to incompetence, non-cooperative attitude and negligence of officers of Capital Development Authority (CDA), the project which was supposed to be completed in 2013 has not been finished yet,” he said while meeting with Chairman CDA Ansar Aziz at Parliament House.
The acting speaker said that the project was started in 2011 and final completion date of the project was December 2013; however, the CDA had extended the time period and granted extension to the construction firm twice. He said that National Assembly Standing Committee on House and Library had instructed the CDA time and again to bind the construction firm to expedite pace of work on the project and complete it within extended completion period which was 30th of September 2016.
Abbasi reminded that former Chairman CDA Maroof Afzal and Member Engineering CDA made repeated commitments before the committee that the project will be completed within stipulated time, however on ground no practical steps were taken to fulfil their commitments. He said that former chairman and member engineering had made false statements and misled the committee during the last three years.
He said that there are more than 100 parliamentarians who have no official accommodation and they have been demanding it for the last three years. He said that it was very embarrassing for him and other members of the committee to satisfy them as CDA gives new date of completion of the project in every meeting of the committee.
He lamented the non-cooperative and irresponsible attitude of CDA towards the committee decisions and directed the chairman CDA to conduct an inquiry to investigate the reasons of delay in construction of additional family suites and take stern action against the officers who were responsible for this failure.
The chairman CDA assured the acting speaker that he would personally look into the matter and will submit detailed report regarding the non- implementation of the committee’s decisions and delay in construction of additional family suites within 15 days.