Punjab Assembly took up the issue of the elite club Lahore Gymkhana paying only Rs 417 per month as a lease for over 1,000 Kanals of state land, with the assembly speaker calling it “exploitation.”
The Punjab Assembly speaker, Malik Muhammad Ahmad Khan, referred the matter to a special committee, which will submit a report within two weeks.
Interestingly, it was also announced that the Gymkhana proceedings will not be in-camera.
Geo Fact Check’s investigations in May this year revealed that the lease agreement, signed in 1996, between the then deputy commissioner of Lahore and the secretary of Lahore Gymkhana Club allowed over a thousand kanals of public land in the centre of Lahore to the club for 50 years at the rate of Rs 5,000 per year.
The lease, effective from 2000, remains valid until 2050, reported Geo Fact Check.
The prestigious club is known for having top post bureaucrats, politicians, businessmen, and armed forces personnel as members, and it has over ten years of waiting lists for those who wish to join.
This development comes as the country goes through one of the most difficult economic periods. With high rates of inflation and increasing debts, the government is trying to reduce its bloated expenditures through an apparent austerity drive.
