Watan Cards: Politicians ‘misused’ scheme to oblige supporters

Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa chief secretary denies any wrongdoing.

ISLAMABAD: The politicians in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa allegedly misused Watan Cards to oblige their political supporters, The Express Tribune has learnt.

However, the provincial government denies any wrongdoing in the distribution process.

According to reliable sources, a large number of Watan Cards have been distributed among supporters of federal and provincial ministers and legislators during over the last three months.

In retrospect, the federal and provincial governments had pooled Rs5 billion to offer financial help to more than 282,000 flood survivors in the impoverished province. The money was transferred to the United Bank Limited (UBL) selected by a federal government authority in mid September.

But flood survivors claim that most of the Watan Card recipients were not affected by the deluge and that they were obliged by lawmakers and ministers, both federal and provincial. Opposition legislators also endorse this claim. They allege that Watan Cards worth Rs2 billion have been misused during the last three months.

The Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) claims to have distributed Rs3.7 billion worth of Watan Cards to 190,000 flood survivors, thus far. And another 92,000 are yet to be issued the coveted cards. The statistics don’t include hundreds of families who did not apply for financial help to save them the “humiliation” of shuttling between government offices.

Flood survivors allege that several ministers and lawmakers have used Watan Cards for political purposes, allegedly to strengthen their vote-bank. They allege that thousands of supporters of Pervaiz Khattak, a provincial minister, have been issued Watan Cards in Nowshera district alone, which is his constituency.

PDMA chief Shakil Qadir, finding himself helpless, wrote a letter to the provincial government calling for ensuring transparency in distribution.

A top provincial bureaucrat seeks to play down the issue. “The situation isn’t as alarming as you think,” Chief Secretary Ghulam Dastagir said.

Asked about Qadir’s letter, he sought to shift the responsibility, saying the survey of the flood victims was supervised by the PDMA chief. He rejected the claims that Watan Cards were issued on political grounds. “Your information is not based on facts,” Dastagir said.

District coordination officers were tasked to finalise lists of flood survivors who qualified for Watan Cards. But the unceremonious removal of DCO Nowshera Ali Anan Qamar by the chief minister on a complaint of Minister Khattak caused panic among his peers elsewhere in flood-hit districts.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 29^th, 2010.