Islamabad:
The Permanent Committee of the Senate on Water Resources expressed a serious concern during the legal disputes waiting for decades, the cases of land by billions of rupees and the closure of the Neelum-Jhelum hydroelectric project.
The Committee, chaired by Senator Shahadat Awan, reviewed compliance reports on WAPDA audit plots and pointed out that some legal cases had been pending for 21 years.
“Wapda has not paid attention to these cases during the last sixteen years,” said Senator Awan, noting that the land worth RS10 billion was under the occupation of Wapda, while the cases that exceeded 298 billion rupees, mainly linked to the mangrove dam, remained unsolved in court.
The president of the committee also gave alarm on the controversial contract of the NaI Gaj RS30 billion dam, which is under investigation by NAB. Senator Awan ordered the president of WAPDA to convene an urgent meeting and present a progress report on all cases related to the audit.
Senator Faisal Rahman criticized Wapda’s legal team for his “breach of moving forward” in long -standing disputes.
In response, the president of the WAPDA, the LT Gen (retd) Muhammad Saeed, who assumed the position only ten days ago, said he had already summoned three meetings to address the problems. “Wapda has many cases for which there is no record, but we are trying to reduce the request for orders.”
Saeed admitted that Wapda’s records were not digitized, but said the efforts were underway for this purpose. He added that the compensation had already been paid to those affected by the mangrove dam, although they were still pursuing cases in the court.
The officials informed the committee that six cases were currently under NAB scrutiny, including two related to the Kachhi channel projects and the Nai Gaj dam. However, the Secretary of the Ministry of Water Resources clarified that these were references against individuals, not Wapda.
The president of the Committee summoned NAB officials and the FIA to their next meeting and ordered WAPDA and the Ministry of Water to present complete details of all cases in progress. “Our job is to ask,” said Senator Awan.
The closure of the Neelum-Jhelum hydrovopter was also discussed after the collapse of its main height tunnel. The authorities said the project had previously faced a collapse of the tail tunnel that was repaired, allowing operations for nine months before the last breakdown.
However, Senator Awan postponed the detailed discussion, noting that a committee formed by the prime minister was already investigating the matter. “We should wait for the consultation report before additional discussion.”
The Committee recommended that the WAPDA legal team immediately coordinate with the General Auditor and the Ministry of Law to resolve cases related to the 2015-16 audit and present a detailed report on all criminal cases and related to PAC in the next session.
