The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Monday asked the Capital Development Authority (CDA) not to extend lease of Monal Restaurant (Islamabad) to current operator, and offer it through open tender in 2021, besides directing Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to initiate a fresh inquiry into the lease.
The subcommittee of PAC met here with MNA Mian Abdul Mannan in the chair on Monday. The subcommittee asked the Ministry of Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD) to conduct a fresh departmental accounts committee (DAC) meeting on the matter and present the report before the panel within two weeks.
The PAC members observed that the CDA management has caused losses of multimillion rupees to the national kitty by awarding the lease of Monal Restaurant without an open tender. The members directed the officials of CDA to avoid such allocations to influential individuals in future to ensure transparency in such matters.
The audit officials informed the panel that in 2007, the CDA built Monal Restaurant on emergency basis on the land reserved for parks and other public places and then it was handed over to present operators against the rules of the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) by not issuing a tender. They further said that the CDA instead of charging official rent of Rs 800,000 per month rented it out at Rs 260,000 per month. As a result, it caused Rs 640 million loss to national kitty over the past 10 years.
The CDA chairman said that as per authority rules, the restaurants can be constructed on the land of public parks in view of facilitating masses. On a question of committee members, he said that the FIA earlier cleared the authority of all the charges.
Responding to the CDA chairman, the committee members said if CDA officials could consider massive irregularities in the whole process as on simple calculations it cost Rs 540,000 loss per month to the national kitty. The panel directed the FIA to hold a fresh inquiry into the matter, fix the responsible officials and present its report before the panel.