Rs1.6m scam suspected at KU

Director finance to submit report within three days, directs Pro-VC.

KARACHI: The bills submitted by the purchase and examinations departments of the University of Karachi (KU) are believed to have been forged.

The accounts department at KU has stopped payments to the firm that provided tents to the examination centres once it was discovered that an extra Rs1.6 million has been added to the bill. According to a few superintendents of the examination centres, the bills are forged, an official said.

The actual rent on the tents, provided to the examination centres at the Department of Islamic Learning, Shaikh Zayed Islamic Centre, New Examination Centre and the Department of Zoology, was Rs4.6 million. This amount was, however, increased to Rs6.2 million by the accused firm, Liaquat Sons.

As per procedure, the bills were checked by the purchase office, examinations department and audit section before it was forwarded to the accounts department for payment.

KU Pro Vice-Chancellor Professor Dr Nasiruddin Khan has directed the director finance to investigate into the alleged scam and present a report within three days.

“Action will be taken against all the officers involved in the scam once the report is published,” he said, while talking to Daily Express.

“If the contract firm is also found guilty then it will be blacklisted for further events, such as examinations and admission tests,” he said.

According to an official, the bill includes a supply of 495 tents to cover an area, 277 feet long and 193 feet wide, when measurements reveal that only 10 tents were enough. A similar incident took place in 2006 when another firm submitted a bill of 80 tents to cover a much smaller area at the Shaikh Zayed Islamic Centre.

Liaquat Sons has only charged Shaikh Zayed Islamic Centre with the additional amount and not other departments at KU. On the other hand, KU has offered to pay at the rate of Rs63 per day for each tent.

When the examination controller ordered an inquiry into the issue, the centre superintendent of library sciences and the department of zoology defended his position by saying that these are not the bills that he signed, said an official at the examinations department.

Director Finance Masood Abbas said that show-cause notices have been issued to Resident Auditor Rizwan Shamim and Chief Accountant Qamar Iqbal. He assured that further investigations are under way and the bills will not be paid until they have been cleared from all legal and technical aspects.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 16^th, 2010.