Local govt marred by graft once again

Nine officers of Municipal Corporation suspended in 2023

MULTAN:

Financial irregularities were once again observed in the Municipal Corporation during the past year. The National exchequer has lost of millions of rupees due to forged signatures and bogus payments. Due to the losses incurred, effective action could not be taken to eliminate encroachments, the government library could not be upgraded and the supply of unhealthy meat illegal slaughterhouses continued.

Despite investigations in the anti-corruption department and the local government, officers and employees of the municipal corporation have continued to commit corruption. Meanwhile, anti-corruption measures have proven fruitless; the suspension of nine employees by Commissioner Multan did not deter graft.

Even in 2023, officers of the municipal corporation continued withdrawing millions of rupees from the national treasury through fake signatures and bogus payments, damaging the exchequer through alleged irregularities in the tenders of development projects.

No effective crackdown has been launched across the city to end the encroachments, while officers and employees have used encroachment as an illicit source of income, with hundreds of thousands of rupees collected as bribes from hand carters along various highways. Similarly, by setting up more than 200 parking stands across the city, hundreds of thousands of rupees were allegedly received in the form of monthly revenue.

Commissioner Multan Division suspended nine employees of the Municipal Corporation’s regulation department, but corruption remained rampant in other departments, including the regulation department and planning department.

The seat of the Chief Officer Municipal Corporation also remained a musical chair, where sometimes Chaudhry Farmaish Ali took charge while Rana Mehboob Alam and his colleagues kept trying to take control of the seat. However, due to a court order, Farmaish Ali kept the seat of the Chief Officer.

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He continued to make claims about improving the institution, but frequently appeared in the offices of the Secretary Local Government Department in Lahore and sometimes in the office of anti-corruption, Multan on charges of graft.

Despite staff of the regulation department being reshuffled, encroachments could not be completely removed from the city, while the monthly collection of bribes from encroachments could not be stopped. Municipal Corporation administrator and Commissioner Multan Amir Khattak also kept threatening to send refer corrupt officials and officers to anti-graft bodies. In practice, measures could not be enacted to stop corruption.

Moreover, the municipal corporation could not auction shops at new rates during the year, which also deprived the organization of millions of rupees in potential income.

Paperwork was also completed against dozens of illegal slaughterhouses set up across the city, but no action was taken against the unregulated supply of substandard meat. Similarly, a crackdown could not be started against illegal commercial buildings. The demolition of more than 300 hazardous buildings was also a matter of expediency but instead of taking any kind of action, a strategy of re-surveying dangerous buildings was adopted.

Due to the illegal warehouses set up in densely populated areas of the city, the citizens were also facing problems, but the municipal corporation did not take any action to solve this problem. Even during 2023, the upgrade of the municipal library remained a pipe dream, while hundreds of rare books stolen from the government library could not be traced.

Social circles have demanded that Commissioner Khattak take steps to bring transparency in Municipal Corporation, so that corruption can be eradicated from this institution and the elements involved in corruption can be discouraged.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 25^th, 2023