At a dead end: Two years on, enquiry into seed project bears no fruit

Record of assets and development fund not shared with team of divisional monitoring office.

PESHAWAR: Two years on, investigation into the establishment of the seed industry project of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) is yet to make any headway.

In view of misappropriation, irregularities and deficiencies in 121 projects of various departments, including the establishment of the seed industry project, a suo motu case was initiated by the provincial ombudsman secretariat. The notification, issued on October 9, 2012 and available with The Express Tribune, states the action was taken by the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) section of the planning and development (P&D) department.

The notification cited negligence, inattention, inaction, corrupt practices and maladministration in the project. Notice was taken under Section 10(4) of the K-P Provincial Ombudsman Act, 2010. The director general (DG) of the agriculture extension department submitted his written reply after several reminders. He contended the project was run by a project director who had been relieved of his services due to the discontinuation of the project. He said the project’s activities had been taken over by the agriculture extension department which resulted in delays in the submission of his reply and other reports.

In a rejoinder of the M&E directorate, the director general of the P&D directorate was asked to give his feedback on the report of the agriculture extension department DG.

In response, director-I of the M&E directorate, P&D department stated in a letter on February 28, 2013 that they were unable to submit comments due to lack of records at the main store in Tarnab and office of the DG agriculture extension department. This further fueled doubts about the transparency of the project. Hence, he requested the recovery of outstanding dues of the agriculture development fund, assets of the project and initiation of legal action against the project authorities.

In its findings, the investigation team observed that the project’s record of assets and development fund were not shown to the team of the divisional monitoring office. It added the agriculture extension department DG had already written a letter to the chief capital city police officer of Peshawar on February 15, 2013 for the registration of a case against ex-project director Muhammad Ismail Jan. It alleged the accused had failed to hand over record of assets along with an outstanding amount of Rs3,828,692.

The team resultantly recommended immediate handing over of all records along with the outstanding amount of the agriculture development fund, in addition to initiating legal action against the project director and other officials responsible for the discrepancies.

A source in the agriculture department said the recommendations were to be implemented within one month and reasons for non-compliance be intimated within the same period, but no action has been taken thus far.

Increasing public complaints were also swept aside by investigation team even though the issue had been taken up with then chief minister Amir Haider Hoti, he claimed.

Former agriculture secretary and commissioner of Malakand division, Afsar Khan, said he has no idea about the matter and does not remember what exactly happened to the investigation. “I only gave directions and the former DG should know about this,” he added.

Former DG of the extension department, Rasheed Khan, said as far as he knows, the record and assets were not handed over to his department even though the court ordered the investigation officer to ensure their recovery after registration of an FIR against the former director of the seed project.

Former director of the seed project Muhammad Ismail Jan could not be reached despite several attempts.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 11^th, 2014.