Real-estate watchdog

This refers to the DHA City scam. There must be many other examples where people have either paid partially or in full for a plot – and yet even after decades they are unable to start building their homes due to mismanagement or corruption.

The government should set up a watchdog real estate company. Rather than paying directly to developers, plot buyers would make the payment to a government-run real-estate company. Let us call it the Pakistan Real Estate Company (PREC). PREC would prequalify a housing developer and after due diligence would make the initial 10 to 15 percent payment to it. As and when land for a project is procured and development is carried out, payment proportional to the work completed would be released by PREC. This is the set practice in building highways and dams. The practice of handing over huge sums of money to a company or individual without checks or balances should stop.

Syed Hussein El-Edroos

Islamabad