Anti-Corruption Establishment begins widespread investigations

The agency is investigating alleged corruption in various departments

HYDERABAD: The Sindh Anti-Corruption Establishment has begun an investigation into the expenditure of over Rs7 billion for dam and irrigation projects in Sanghar district. The funds utilised by the Chortiari Dam Project, the Sindh Irrigation Department’s drainage division of Sanghar and the New Nara Canal division since 2009 have come under scrutiny.

According to the circle officer, Muhammad Naeem Khanzada, the drainage division spent over Rs4 billion, Chotiari Dam Rs2.59 billion and Nara Canal Rs385 million during the last five financial years. The raiding team also sought the financial records from the year 2008-2009, in which an estimated amount of around one billion rupees was spent, but the records were not made available.

“Massive corruption has taken place in these projects. We will request the provision of a technical expert who can examine how much of that money was really spent on drainage, stone pitching, de-silting and other works,” an anti-corruption official of Sanghar told The Express Tribune. The FIR will be registered after the completion of the investigation.



He said that although corruption has yet to be established, there are ample indicators to show that public money was siphoned off. “Our staff had knowledge of corruption in these, and other departments, but after the appointment of the new chairperson [Mumtaz Ali Shah] the officers have sprung into action,” the official claimed.

In Mirpurkhas, the anti-corruption officers seized records from the offices of the education and municipal departments on Thursday. Deputy director Zakir Hussain Samo said that they are investigating fake appointments in the district office of elementary education from 2010 to 2015. According to him, clerks Abdul Sattar Kunbhar and Manzoor Bajeer issued 229 offer letters for posts of teachers, clerks, peons and others from 2013-2014 and 80 in the current year.  “Millions of rupees have been reportedly embezzled via fake identities and fake bills,” he alleged.

He said that the town municipal officer, Arshad Barki, and accountant, Muhammad Ali Khoso, were not at the office. “We telephoned them but they didn’t show up,” he said.

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) questioned the education department, Matiari’s officers about 397 appointments made in the department in 2012 during the tenure of district education officer Ataullah Bhutto. The incumbent district officer, Gul Zareen, informed the NAB deputy director, Ayaz Memon, that 291 of the appointed staff are being issued their salaries, while the case of another 106 is pending hearing in Hyderabad’s anti-corruption court.

In Badin, the anti-corruption officials spent their second day at the treasury office to collect the records of the expenditures of various irrigation schemes in the district. The chief minister, Qaim Ali Shah, has acknowledged that around Rs50 billion have been eaten up in the irrigation works in Sindh.

Two officers from the union council office of Bolhari in Jamshoro district were arrested on Friday for alleged corruption and fake appointments. The deputy director, Mir Nadir Abro, said that the UC secretary, Zakir Baig, and a sanitary inspector, Younus Pathan, issued monthly salaries in the name of ghost employees who never worked for the union council. “We have information of over Rs7 million being embezzled,” he claimed. An FIR was also registered against Baig and Pathan.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 8^th, 2015.