DHA postpones refurbishment charges collection

The Defence Housing Authority (DHA) has once again postponed collection of its controversial refurbishment charges from its residents for three months.

The Administrator, DHA, Brigadier Aamir Raza Qureshi, confirmed to The News on Thursday that postponement of collection of refurbishment charges had been done on the recommendation of the sub-committee of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Defence. The sub-committee was formed to look into the issues related to residents of the DHA, Karachi. He said that postponement of collection of Refurbishment charges was to take effect immediately.

The issue of DHA again asking its residents to pay hefty refurbishment charges, levied initially in mid-2009 to collect money the DHA had spent to lay new storm water drainage system in the area, was discussed at the meeting of sub-committee of National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Defence held at the offices of Cantonment Board Clifton on January 10, 2011.

The sub-committee meeting, chaired by MNA Nawab Abdul Ghani Talpur, recommended that a committee comprising representatives of DHA residents and officials of the Defence Authority would be constituted to settle the issue of collection of refurbishment charges within three months.

The General-Secretary of the Association of Defence Residents (ADR), Asad Kizilbash, who attended the sub-committee meeting, told The News that Defence residents were always ready to meet the DHA authorities to resolve any issue but on the subject of refurbishment charges it was felt to be unfair and the court case regarding it must be pursued as it is doing right now, said the ADR representative at the meeting.

Kizilbash said the administrator DHA had also stated at the meeting that the court case against refurbishment charges would not be affected.

Meanwhile, The Administrator DHA informed an ADR delegation that the empirical root cause analysis of the defect of DHA Cogen Desalination, non-functional since long, would be carried out through a third party evaluation to find a permanent solution for the recurring problem of the plant.