According to a news item of 9 October 2004 National Accountability Bureau was working with Lahore Development Authority to solve certain procedural problems to ensure Bahria Town Scheme proceeds smoothly. I am sure it is not because it is a scheme of which a layman takes an impression as if it was a scheme officially of or directly or indirectly supported or backed by our respected Pakistan Navy Department on which our nation has rightly blind faith? I have years back addressed NAB about run away lucky draw schemes but I did not get any response. Recently people lost through hands of foreign exchange companies but so far at least through my eyes no news item has so far passed NAB taking any serious action on it.
Mehran Town Housing Scheme was established in 1975 by late Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto exclusively for Overseas Pakistanis (OPS) in Karachi. OPs paid full in foreign exchange. Some development work was done which the 1978 Karachi floods damaged and eroded. Since 1978 in Karachi many floods and storms came, many new roads bridges were made, got damaged, repaired, re-repaired but Karachi Development Authority about this housing scheme always song a single song “1978 floods eroded the development work”. Three four years back I visited the site and it was difficult even to stand for 5 minutes in the waste lying there. Deliberately the site was let to turn into a city waste dumping place. After the 1978 flood a huge has from time to time financially been spent on the Development but physically there appears to be no development. In our childhood we used to listen from our elders or Hakeems that as some time one’s stomach omits out even a small quantity eaten, likewise in some cases even too much food taken does not correspondingly shows any sign of health as this digestion without showing any good effect on health is due to mal functioning. Some years back through the Sindh Ombudsman I raised the request that a committee of independent people including Mr. Ardshir Cowasjee, Ms. Yasmeen Lari and Engineer Ronald D’Sousa of Sheri be appointed who may themselves take soil samples and get it tested in some reputed laboratories if the stomach of the site was mal functioning and had really digested without any physical appearance so much development finance after 1978 but I never got any response to the point. Someone filed a complaint on this scheme with the former Ehtisab Bureau. For the last more than 4 years from pillar to post I struggled to get a copy of said complaint but could not succeed. Now that NAB has taken a good initiative in the larger interest of the people, would it be kind enough also to take a note of above Mehran Town Scheme. This scheme today is not worth living with families but NAB may investigate the mal functioning stomach of the soil.