Hyderabad's defunct education offices utilise Rs140m non-salary budget

Internal inquiry committee to conduct probe next week

HYDERABAD: The defunct education offices in seven districts of Hyderabad division utilised around Rs140 million unauthorised funds in fiscal year 2017-18. Interestingly, the Sindh education and literacy department made these offices inoperative over three years ago, restricting them from making use of non-salary expenditures.

Despite the restriction, the department kept releasing the non-salary budgets with over Rs176 million final budget recorded in the last financial year. And, some 16 offices of District Officer Education (DOE) academic training, DOE sports, DOE SEMIS and Executive District Officer put that non-salary budget to use in an apparent violation of the constraint. The concerned officials exercised powers of Drawing and Disbursing Officer (DDO) in this regard.

“The officials who released the budget for repair, maintenance, fuel, furniture, fixtures, of the defunct offices are equally involved in the scam along with the DDOs who received and availed the amount,” an education official, who requested anonymity, said while talking to The Express Tribune.

According to him, while the department made the said offices dysfunctional, the staff remained posted there and kept drawing salaries. He blamed the department for delaying to post the idle staff to other functional offices.

Taking notice, the provincial secretary, Qazi Shahid Pervaiz, has initiated a departmental inquiry. “A committee ... is constituted for physical inspection of the financial record to probe the matter of unauthorised utilisation of funds by the DDOs of all defunct offices of the education department,” reads the secretary’s notification. “The committee will also inspect last three years financial record.”

The committee is headed by director inspection and registration of government institutions, Ghulam Muhammad Pathan. The deputy director of the education department’s internal audit unit, Zahid Pervez Malik, assistant director internal audit unit, Munawar Ali Mughal and section officer Bashir Khan are its members.

The committee’s terms of reference include auditing all financial and administrative records, collecting evidence and recording statements of responsible officials and identifying officials involved in illegal utilisation of funds.

Following the notification, Pathan wrote to the schools education director, Hyderabad region to summon all the officials exercising DDO powers for the 16 offices in Hyderabad, Thatta, Jamshoro, Dadu, Matiari, Tando Allayar and TM Khan district. The officials have also been given a proforma to submit details of the budget released and utilised from 2015 onward. The committee will conduct a hearing on September 25 in Hyderabad.

According to the statement of expenditures for fiscal 2017-18, the highest sum of money was utilised by EDO Dadu at Rs20.8 million against the available funds of Rs30.3 million. EDO Jamshoro spent Rs17.29 million, EDO TM Khan Rs14.49 million, EDO Matiari Rs14.33 million and EDO Tando Allahyar Rs9.66 million, among others. For the four offices, the department set aside Rs21.41 million, Rs19.91 million, Rs19.45 million and Rs15 million respectively.

“Most of these officials haven’t been given vehicles but they have availed funds for fuel,” an official source claimed. He feared that the internal inquiry is unlikely to fix responsibility and punish the officials for the alleged embezzlement.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, September 23^rd, 2018.