(No) value for money: Sindh govt colleges got Rs150m over budget

Extra money sought and secured despite shockingly low enrolment figures

KARACHI: Several government colleges in Sindh have been receiving millions of rupees over their allocated budget for the past three years, The Express Tribune has learnt.

In what seems to be a mega-scandal in the making, official documents show that 76 government colleges obtained a combined Rs150 million on top of their budget in the previous fiscal year even though most of them, including 41 in Karachi alone, do  not have more than a few dozen students enrolled.

The colleges used the pretext of repairing computers, furniture and other facilities to justify the revised budgets even though the extra money they obtained surpassed the cost of such expenses. The revised budgets themselves were passed without fulfilling necessary legal and procedural conditions.

The documents also reveal that the Directorate General of Colleges Sindh and the Regional Colleges Directorate of Karachi were part of the same scam, and secured Rs3.4 million and Rs2.3 million respectively using revised budgets. In the meantime, the crucial post of Sindh director general of colleges has remained vacant for a year with the charge entrusted to a Grade 18 officer, Ali Abbas Tipu. The directorate has also been functioning without a finance director.



Sindh’s education ministry has now formed two different committees to probe the scandal, College Education Secretary Pervez Sehar told The Express Tribune. In the meantime, the Sindh finance department has been asked to suspend payments to colleges under revised budgets, he said.

The investigation

According to sources, the scandal first surfaced in Government SS College in Shaheed Benazirabad. It later came to light that the college was not alone in utilising revised budgets to obtain extra money. As many as 76 government colleges of Sindh, most of them in Karachi, were doing the same for the past three years.

Each of these colleges were able to obtain more than Rs10 million over their allocated budget, according to documents, using revised estimates that did not meet legal and procedural requirements. The highest cumulative amount, Rs150 million, was obtained in the 2017-18 fiscal year.

Committees formed

When the Department of College Education learned of the matter through secretary Sehar, a committee chaired by Sukkur Regional Director Colleges Prof Karan Singh and comprising Additional Director Colleges Hyderabad Abdul Majeed Umrani, Regional Director Colleges Karachi Majid Ali and an additional finance director was formed on March 6. Colleges Directors General Prof Saleem Ghauri had already constituted a separate committee earlier in November. Both committees are currently probing the matter.

Sources within the committees confirmed that the revised estimates were never approved by the concerned regional directors, the colleges director of Sindh or the secretary of college education. They said the colleges took the additional funds directly from the Sindh finance department.

The colleges

Documents available with The Express Tribune make some startling revelations in this regard. In one instance, Government Girls Degree College Punjabi Club in Karachi obtained Rs3.8 million over its allocated Rs5.47 million budget in 2017-18 even though it only has 48 students enrolled.

Government Degree College for Women Ibrahim Haideri Karachi obtained Rs2 million over its Rs5.3 million allocated budget despite having only 272 students enrolled while Government Boys Degree College Gora Bari obtained Rs1 million over its Rs9.8 million original budget despite having just 292 students on roll. Likewise, Government Girls College JM Brohi Goth obtained an additional Rs2.4 million in addition to its original Rs8.5 million budget despite having only 517 students on roll.

Government Degree College in Karachi’s Gulshan-e-Iqbal doubled its budget to Rs5 million using a revised budget despite having slightly more than 4,000 students on roll. The PECHS Government College for Women, meanwhile, increased its allocated budget from Rs3.2 million to Rs5 million in 2015-16, from Rs7.3 million to Rs11.3 million in 2016-17 and from Rs11 million to Rs11.5 million in 2017-18 despite around 3,000 students on roll. Karachi’s Government Inter-Science College Malir Cantt, likewise, received Rs3.4 million on top of the Rs5.76 million allocated 2017-18 budget, despite only having 1,718 students enrolled.

Shaheed Benazirabad’s Government SS College, obtained a whopping Rs5.5 million on top of a Rs6.9 million allocated budget in the previous fiscal despite a modest 333 enrolment figure. The college used a revised budget again this year to exceed its allocated Rs8.1 million budget. Two more colleges in Shaheed Benazirabad, Government College Daulatpur and Government Girls College took Rs2.5 million and Rs1.5 million against enrolments of 925 and 1,484 students.

In a letter, the director general colleges was informed by the committee he constituted that Deputy Director Ali Abbas Tipu did not cooperate when asked to provide the record of budget use under his tenure. The letter added that Tipu also did not comply with the committee’s directives to have all bills of expenditures approved by it and concluded that the Grade 18 officers role in the matter appeared ‘suspicious’.

“It may take an additional two months to conclude the inquiry,” a member of one the committees said.

A former regional director of colleges for Karachi defended the revised budgets when contacted. “A revised budget is necessary when salaries increase,” said Prof Mashooq Baloch. He could not provide a satisfactory reply, however, when asked why institutes with low enrolment would need millions of rupees more than allocated. “We’ll only know the exact reasons once the committees come out with their final findings,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 2^nd, 2019.