Staff Report,
RAWALPINDI: The director Local Government and Community Development (LG&CD) is appointed as inquiry officer to probe the alleged irregularities and corruption is the assessment and management of Municipal Corporation Rawalpindi’s (MCR) assets.
Sources privy to the development said, taking notice of the alleged irregularities and corruption in the assets management of MCR assets the Secretary (LG&CD) directed the Director General Inspection to conducted the inquiry of the matter.
The DG Inspection Masood Tamana who is having an additional charge of Metropolitan Corporation Lahore appointed Director LG&CD Rawalpindi as inquiry officer to inspect the MCR assets compare their revenue generation with market value, sources maintained.
The MCR having more than 2860 shops in different areas of the city and the average rent collected from these shops is from 400 to 1000, while the average rent of the private shops in the same areas and the same location are from 40 thousand to 60 thousand.
The sources went to say that almost 50 percent of shops are illegally sold for million rupees by the tenant with the consent of the MCR tax branch officials. According to the rules and regulation the tenant is not authorities to sub-let shop or any portion of the shop to anyone else even the tenant is not authorities to hand over possession of the shops to his family member, but the majority of the shops are either illegally sold or sub-let to the private persons.
Moreover, the tenant was not authorities to make any changing in the structure of these properties and they were bound to get the approval even before doing any renovation but in violation of the contract agreement, the tenant has changed the structure of these shops and in most of the cases the tenant has made partitions in the MCR properties and divided shops into multiple portions.
The public body faces a loss of billions every year due to the lack of proper assets management. The lease agreement between the tenant and MCR is expired years ago and due to the negligence of MCR tax branch it is not renewed yet.
Sources added, the anti-corruption establishment has also sought records of the MCR assets along with the details of revenue generation. To hide the irregularities and corruption in the assets management and revenue generation the MCR officials are reportedly tempering the record and illegally signing a contract with the current tenant.
When contacted, the officials of the tax branch said that the MCR has sent multiple requests to the District Rent Assessment Committee (DRAC) in 2013 and later, but did not received any response. The DRAC committee which is headed by the Deputy Commissioner is responsible for the delay of several years in the reassessment of the properties rents, he claimed.
Answering a question regarding the sub-let and sale of the MCR shops to private personals, the official said, the situation across the country is the same, not only in MCR all the public bodies are having irregularities in the assets management.
