Officials with the Sindh elementary teachers training project ran into some serious trouble for irregularities worth millions of rupees.
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC), a watchdog that oversees government finances, has decided to write to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), the anti-corruption establishment and the Chief Minister’s Inspection Team (CMIT) to find out where all the money went. The committee warned that it would initiate criminal proceedings against officers found involved in any underhand dealings.
The PAC meeting was held with Sardar Jam Tamachi Unar in chair at the committee room at the Sindh Assembly building on Thursday. The committee reviewed and discussed the education department’s audit report. Out of the 45 paras from 2006-07, 2007-08 and 2008-9, 22 were settled, while the rest of them had glaring discrepancies and were set aside to be discussed at the next meeting.
The Canadian International Development Agency (Cida) had provided the Sindh education department Rs331 million as a grant/loan in 2006 so that it could train elementary teachers, said Audit Director-General Najamul Saqib Siddiqui.
Cida said that if the department used the money transparently, the loan would be waived and the money would be considered a grant. If, however, the accounts had discrepancies, then the sum would be considered a loan and Cida would charge interest. As it turned out, the audit of the Sindh elementary teachers training project showed problems worth millions of rupees. More than Rs96 million was spent on 43 vehicles without approval. The fact that the vehicles were nowhere to be found made it even worse. The record did not even show any documents proving that the purchase was made in the first place.
Siddiqui said that project officials had not been able to justify “fictitious expenditure” on stationery and consumable articles worth Rs9.8 million. Similarly, other hefty sums were unaccounted for.
A very good project has turned into a painful business, said education secretary Naheed Shah Durrani, adding that she was trying to register FIRs against people involved in these irregularities.
The secretary said that she did not have much power to make things right in her department, citing the AEDOs as a major obstacle. She gave an example of her father’s (Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah) constituency, in which 55 extra lady teachers were posted to the Women’s College, Khairpur. However, she was unable to transfer even those teachers because of “pressure”.
Shah said that 21 public schools were running in Sindh with the support of the provincial government but these schools were only for “rich people and their children”.
Sindhi Adabi Board
The teachers training programme was not the only one in trouble. The Sindhi Adabi Board also had problems with its audit. Around Rs2 million was spent on appointing officials on contract without proper justification.
PAC member Amir Moin Pirzada pointed out that this was a common practice in every department. Chairman Unar said that officers who were unable to produce their records in time for the audit should be suspended.
More than one million rupees was paid to a consultant, whose appointment was unjustified. The Audit DG explained that Rs3 million were allocated for consultants for the office of the Sindhi Adabi Board at Jamshoro. The consultants were needed to upload 500,000 pages of old books to the institute’s website. Out of this sum, Rs1.2 million was paid to the consultant.
Then there was the case of a missing car, worth Rs879,000. According to Siddiqui, the records for this purchase were duly noted in the register. An official of the board explained that the car was bought for the controversial consultant from the funds of the ADP scheme, reproduction and reprinting of old books, in May 2007. Then he added that the consultant returned the car to the board because he had his own.
The committee rightfully demanded why the car was bought in the first place but the official did not have anything to say to that. The discussion on this para was deferred.
Another problem surfaced in missing books worth Rs648,020. This discrepancy the official had an answer to: they went missing during the shifting of a book shop from Jamshoro to Tilak Charhee, Hyderabad. The board is still looking into this, he added optimistically. The grilling ended on a positive note, however, with the PAC chairman and members patting the education secretary on the back.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 22nd, 2011.
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