ISLAMABAD: Senate body takes notice of Art & Craft Village scam

Senate Standing Committee for Cabinet Chairman Shaid Hassan Bugti taking notice of Daily Times news reports on Rs 20.333 billion corruption in Art and Craft Village (ACV) project has summoned management of the Capital Development Authority (CDA) and Indus Heritage Trust (IHT) for their reply to the committee.

Daily Times has pointed out that former CDA chairman Kamran Lashari changed the authority’s rules while the incumbent chairman made threw the rules to the bin to let a group of influential personalities of the capital run their money minting projects on state gifted land of 21 acres at scenic Shakarparian hills without any legal approval.

During Lashari’s tenure, the ACV’s idea was conceived and advertised in the newspapers on 4th of August 2004 to seek partnership with a reputable and experienced NGO to execute the project for promotion of Pakistani culture and civilization. IIHT came into being 11 days after the publication of the advertisement, courtesy Anis Jilani and eventually Lashari gifted this unique project to the Trust ignoring all requirements of pre-qualification due to the influence of Hina Rabbani Khar, Sharjeel Shah and Ghulam Bilour.

Sources said CDA present chairman Imtiaz Inayat Elahi following in the footsteps of his predecessor has been continuously defending the project.

While talking to this scribe he stated that project of ACV was transparent and he sees nothing against the bylaws of CDA. While stating that he even ignored that project was on CDA land but it has been decided that a private company will conduct the audit of the ACV although CDA has tens of offices and teams who can conduct audit but there are chances that they can suggest that case of embezzlement should be handed over to NAB or FIA as some officers of Law Directorate suggested after getting information about the agreement between CDA and IHT. IHT is run by Samina Khan (Sungi project and widow of Omer Asghar Khan), Siddiqua Malik, Bushra Rafi, Zarene Malik, Moyna Aikens (British national of Indian origins and being investigated by secret agencies), and Anees Jillani (Advocate).

Sources told Daily Times that on a women day’s function IHT raised more than Rs 30 million but none of this money was deposited in the joint account of IHT and CDA as per the initial agreement between the two. Another former director of the project also revealed that IHT had raised more than Rs 60 million from another fund raiser organized at the venue and after that came into being a surrogate NGO called Saba by one of the masterminds of IHT, hailing from Sungi. Again there is no mention of this amount in the joint account.

The IHT management has contacted World Bank to get loan although it is World Bank’s policy that they do not give loans to private entities and for that IHT has been using the face value of CDA to get loans.

Senate Standing Committee of Cabinet has taken a notice of that news and summoned management of IHT and CDA to clarify their position.
Daily Times