“Forests are being depleted with each passing day because of illegal occupation, but the police are not taking action against the offenders,” complained Nadir Talpur, the chief forest conservator, to the Sindh Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) members on Tuesday. “The revenue officials are busy allotting forest land by tampering with the records.”
The meeting, presided over by committee chairman Jam Tamachi Unar, reviewed the audit reports of various financial years of the forest, wildlife and law departments. The committee was briefed on how people are chopping down trees and cultivating crops in whatever jungles are left in the province.
It seems that the land grabbers are more powerful than the committees formed of judges, forest officials and district administrations to tackle the problem, said Talpur. “It has now become a law and order [on its own].”
Of the 600,000 acres of riverine forests along the River Indus from Kashmore to Thatta, around 10 to 20 per cent have been occupied. But the forest department has no data to support its claim.
“We have leased around 50,000 acres of land [in the barrage areas] for agriculture, telling the owners to cultivate at least 20 per cent of forest on the land,” said Mushtaque Memon, the forest secretary. The department earned around Rs240 million from the land lease during the past four years.
The audit team found financial irregularities worth Rs106 million in the accounts of forest and wildlife departments from 2007 to 2009, the audit director-general, Ghulam Akbar Sohu, told the media after the meeting.
Law department disobeys law
The PAC members also took to task law officials, who did spent the budget allotted in the 2008-9 fiscal year, but did not bother to keep a record. When the auditors talked about the financial irregularities of Rs130 million in the department, secretary law Ghulam Nabi Shah asked for more time to bring the account books.
The auditors found that excessive money was spent on 28 flats given to judges in Karachi against the rules. The office of “Access to Justice Programme” spent Rs10 million without sanction.
When the audit officials talked about the Rs1.4 million given to contractors, the law officers tried to convince the committee members that rules were followed but could not give the proof.
“Irregularities worth Rs233 million have been detected in the books of law department. Since the officials have failed to justify the irregular expenses, we cannot settle their audit para,” said the audit director general.
The law department was given two weeks time to produce the record.
Sindh ‘freebie’ House
Sindh House – a resthouse owned by the Sindh government – is frequented by Sindh’s bureaucrats and politicians on their visits to Islamabad, but they do not bother to pay.
Syed Ali Bux Shah alias Pupoo Shah, the former population minister, has to pay Rs1,666; bureaucrat Munawar Opel is a defaulter of Rs62,000; and Muhammad Sharif Baloch, a senior member of the Federal Land Commission, has to pay Rs18,800 for staying at Sindh House.
A “bad” government
Though a significant budget was set aside for development this year, officials are giving the Pakistan Peoples Party-led government a bad name through corruption, the committee chairman said during the discussion on audit reports of the Sindh Works and Services Department.
Irregular payments, contracts to “favourites” and expenses without vouchers were the main objections raised by the audit team. At least Rs311 million were misappropriated in the department during the two years audited. The officials were asked to settle the issue within one month.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 29th, 2012.
COMMENTS
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ