On the side: ‘Rust eats away at spare parts squirreled away by WAPDA’

Officials profit on selling some pieces at throwaway prices in Gilgit, FATA, says union leader.

NOWSHERA: Spare parts worth billions of rupees are rusting away at the Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) Construction Store in Nowshera. Often these are useful electric or mechanical parts which officials sell at throwaway prices across the province and tribal areas.

These claims were made by Wapda Construction Association (WCA) Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) President Lalzada Khan on Sunday while he was talking to journalists.

The construction store has three portions, said Lalzada, the first part of it is where pylons are put together. Instead, the angle iron used to construct the poles was gathering rust, he maintained.

The provincial president explained the second storey was for reclamation where parts of power transformers, coils and transformer oils are stored, awaiting repairs. He accused Wapda officials of charging people illegally for repair work on inoperative transformers.

The third storey of the unit in Nowshera is stocked with service cables, power cables, and meters, explained Lalzada. These were also going to waste, he alleged. While the connection fee includes service cables and meters, officials often ask for more money to provide the actual cable, he claimed.

Wapda workers take these spare parts to places such as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, Chitral, and Gilgit, using government vehicles, said Lalzada. He accused the power company’s officials of aiding these workers in under pricing and illegally selling these parts.

Officials of the Wapda in Nowshera became millionaires due to their involvement in malpractice, alleged the WCA provincial president.

Lalzada demanded Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Minister of State for Water and Power Abid Sher Ali, the Wapda chairman, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) visit the Wapda Construction Store in Nowshera and take action against those involved in such corruption.

Nowshera XEN Construction Muhammad Iqbal Khan explained that Lalzada Khan had already submitted several applications to NAB and FIA regarding this issue. He added in response to Lalzada’s complaints, enquiries were conducted but his allegations were proved baseless.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 17^th, 2014.