The government has declared the leasing process of National Highways Authority (NHA) as non-transparent, and frozen all fresh and under process land leases, official sources told Business Recorder here on Saturday.
"The government has frozen all fresh leases of NHA and imposed ban on new leases until a transparent leasing policy is formulated," sources said. They said that the issue was discussed in the last meeting of Economic Co-ordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet, and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz himself enquired about the mechanism for transparency of leasing process and removal of complaints.
The Ministry of Communications, which administers the affairs of NHA, apprised the ECC about the regulatory framework and standard operating procedures being followed for commercialisation of its RoW land for kiosks (khokhas), bus bays, laying utility services ie electricity, water, gas, oil pipelines, optical fibre cables, etc.
The ministry also explained that the previous system being followed by the provincial governments for leasing of RoW land involved about 28 steps which were tedious and time consuming. The old system was re-looked into and fresh leases were granted through competitive bidding, sources quoted the ministry as informing the ECC.
Sources said that the ECC smelled wrongdoings in the allocation process, as such apprehensions were raised by some sitting federal ministers who were present in the meeting. According to sources, the ECC directed the Ministry of Communications to prepare a transparent leasing policy, in consultation with NHA, spelling out judicious recommendations for leasing out the RoW land by the Authority in future.
"The Ministry and NHA have been directed to discuss the draft policy with the Prime Minister before its submission to ECC," sources quoted the Prime Minister as saying.
They said that the ECC also took strong exception to the condition of recently built roads, and asked the ministry to review actions taken in respect of the roads which have started eroding despite expenditure of billions of rupees.