For several years, the Directorate of Municipal Administration (DMA) has been managing fees at major parking areas like the one near Centaurus and the G-9 terminal. An official from the DMA emphasized the need for a thorough investigation into the fee collection process and the funds deposited into the DMA’s accounts.
In 2022, a special audit revealed significant issues with the DMA’s self-collection method, leading to recommendations for a full inquiry. An inquiry committee was set up in July 2022, but it has yet to hold anyone accountable.
The audit, conducted by a team led by audit officer Rao Shahid Pervez, exposed widespread corruption. The team audited several projects, including parking fee collections at Shakarparian and Daman-i-Koh over the past two years. The audit found that parking ticket books were printed locally without proper documentation, making it difficult to verify daily collections and deposits into the CDA and Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad (MCI) accounts.
The audit report highlighted the lack of a stock register for ticket books, which is essential for tracking parking fee receipts. There were also no records of receipts, expenditures, or salary payments, and all expenses were made without proper approval, indicating poor financial discipline in the DMA.
The inquiry report from 2022 mentioned that a former contractor for the Centaurus car parking owed Rs. 30 million, but the DMA did not issue any notice for recovery. The report criticized the DMA for managing parking sites without standard procedures and noted that the lack of proper record-keeping led to lower fee recovery. The audit estimated a loss of Rs. 82.34 million due to the lack of transparency in fee recovery.
The DMA took control of the G-9 bus stand on September 8, 2021, and the Centaurus parking space on June 24, 2021. The report revealed that 19 kiosks in the G-9 bus stand and two at the Centaurus parking were rented out without approval from the competent authority. The rent collected by DMA staff was not deposited into CDA accounts, resulting in further financial losses.
The audit also pointed out that Rs. 170 million was recoverable from the contractor of the G-9 stand, but no efforts were made to recover the amount.
Following this alarming audit report, the MCI and CDA formed an inquiry committee, but no findings have been released yet.
A senior DMA officer stated that due to technical issues, the DMA was collecting the fees directly. However, he mentioned that the issue is expected to be resolved soon, as the DMA signed an agreement with a private firm six months ago to start smart online fee collection.
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Very lovely ProPakistani! the news is of Islamabad and the picture in the news is of Dubai which shows the Etisalat Head Office in Dubai. Anyhow, Can ProPakistani disclose a government department in Sindh (in particular) and in Islamabad where there is “No Corruption” ? Do you have answers? Now, everybody knows that the Government is blind, deaf and dumb – because their own people themselves are involved in trillions of rupees corruption. There is now only one solution and that is knows to Allah because it is now out of the hands of Pakistan people (other than government corrupted mafias).
Good job. Pro Pakistani should learn something and at least bother to click few more times before publishing news.