Islamabad:
On Wednesday, the Senate’s Standing Committee on Water Resources expressed serious concerns during legal conflicts awaiting decades, land affairs with a billions of rupees and the closure of the Neelum-Jhelum hydroelectric project.
The committee, chaired by Senator Shahadat Awan, examined compliance reports on the Wapda paras audit and noted that certain legal affairs have been pending for 21 years.
“Wapda has not paid attention to these cases in the past sixteen years,” said Senator Awan, stressing that land worth 10 billion rupees were under the occupation of Wapda, while cases exceeding 298 billion rupees – mainly linked to the mangla dam – remained unresolved before the courts.
The chairman of the committee also made an alarm about the controversial contract of 30 billion rupees of Rs 30 billion RS Gaj, which is the subject of a survey by NAB. Senator Awan ordered the president of the WAPDA to convene an urgent meeting and to present a stage report on all cases related to the audit.
Senator Faisal Rahman criticized the Wapda legal team for his “failure to make progress” on long -standing disputes.
In response, the president of Wapda, LT Gen (Retd) Muhammad Saeed, who took office only ten days ago, said that he had already brought together three meetings to solve the problems. “Wapda has many cases for which there is no file, but we are trying to reduce the backlog.”
Saeed admitted that Wapda files were not digitized but assured that efforts were underway for this purpose. He added that compensation had already been paid to the assignments of the Mangla dam, although they are still pursuing cases before the courts.
The officials informed the committee that six cases were currently under the control of NAB, two of which concerning each of the dams of the Kachhi channel and Nai Gaj. However, the secretary of the Ministry of Water Resources said that these were references against individuals, not Wapda.
The Chairman of the Committee summoned NAB and FIA officials to his next meeting and ordered the Ministry of Wapda and Water to present complete details of all current cases. “It’s our job to find out,” said Senator Awan.
The closure of the Neelum-Jhelum hydroelectric project was also presented after the collapse of its head tunnel. The officials said that the project had previously been faced with a collapse of the tail tunnel which had been repaired, allowing operations for nine months before the last ventilation.
Senator Awan, however, postponed the detailed discussion, noting that a committee trained by the Prime Minister already sounded the question. “We should wait for the investigation report before a more in -depth discussion.”
The Committee recommended that the WAPDA legal team immediately coordinated with the Auditor General and the Ministry of Law to resolve cases related to the 2015-2016 audit and submit a detailed report on all criminal and PAC cases during the next meeting.
