Sports grounds must be taken back, say officials

Government department has taken up task of fighting back land grabbers.

KARACHI: Yet another government department has taken up the task of fighting back land grabbers. On Thursday, the Public Accounts Committee of the Sindh Assembly told all district coordination officers and district police officers in the province to take action against people who have either occupied sports grounds or who misuse them.

“Big plazas and parking lots have been set up on a majority of these grounds,” said Jam Tamachi Unar, the chairman of the committee, while also referring to playgrounds.

In Karachi, sports grounds and playgrounds are being turned into wedding venues and in smaller towns across the province people have even started sowing crops on them. Tamachi decided that the board of revenue needs to be brought in the loop about the problem.

Responding to queries, the secretary of sports and youth affairs, Shoaib Ahmed Siddiqui, told the committee that Sir Syed University had turned a hockey ground close by into a parking lot but the chief minister had ordered the sports department to take it back. It was later handed over to the Karachi Hockey Association but once again, weddings and bazaars are being set up on it.

The secretary brought up the controversy over the YMCA ground but lamented that despite the fact that the inspector-general of police had been informed about it, no action had been taken against the squatters.

Audits

Turning to the audit report of the sports and youth affairs department for the year 2007-08, Director General Audit Sindh Nazeer Seehar said that around Rs51 million had been bungled by sports officials. The office of the Sindh sports board, Karachi, coordinator had failed to produce a record of spending Rs21.834 million. The department was told about it, but did not reply.

Seehar pointed out that several payments worth Rs12.8 million was made without tenders and Rs10.1 million was spent but no supporting vouchers were available. The department made purchases worth Rs2.1 million but this was not entered in the stock register.

Responding to these queries, the secretary said that cases have been lodged against officials and the matter was before the court of a special anti-corruption judge. He presented a copy of the FIR but it was barely legible.

The chairman of the public accounts committee directed him to produce all the records, including a legible copy of the FIR, at the next meeting.

He issued directives to the anti-corruption director to brief the committee about the status of the case.

“It is fraud and we want to know what kind of sections have been included in the case,” he said.

MPA Ghulam Mujadad Isran, who is a member of the committee, told The Express Tribune that they will make sure that the case is registered under the proper section.

The sports secretary pointed out during the meeting that they have a limited budget that has been increased by a 25 per cent grant by the chief minister. In addition to this, he gave them five million rupees for the hockey federation.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 10^th, 2010.