Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa's PTI govt removes secretary for unmasking Rs2 billion corruption

Umar Cheema

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s government in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa has removed a provincial secretary (making him an OSD) a day after he sent a case to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) of massive corruption that he unmasked in a $20 million (Rs2.052 billion) donor-funded project for the crisis-hit areas.

Muhammad Ali Shahzada, who was the secretary of industries, commerce and technical education, wrote that “disasters in fact brought bounties for the corrupt... and favoritism, nepotism and non-professional approach has defeated the purpose of grant.”

He demanded sacking of the officials under whose watch “money was sanctioned and disbursed for reasons other thanmerit” but faced removal instead.

Inspection reports that Shahzada prepared after field visits found out that no procedure was followed in sanctioning monetary assistance and the beneficiaries were not even remotely affected either by terrorism or the 2010 flood.

‘The News’ rang and sent text messages to KP Information Minister Mushtaq Ghani for recording his version but he neither returned call nor responded to the messages. Shahzada, however, confirmed that he was made OSD a day after the letter sent to NAB. He was reluctant to go into detail.

Economic Revitalisation of KP and Fata (ERKF) is a multi-donor trust fund project being administered by the World Bank. It was started for economic revitalisation of crisis-affected private business and public sector institutions with a grant assistance of 20 million dollars. The project has three components and the biggest among them having a financial allocation of 9.1 million dollars is aimed at rehabilitating affected private businesses, which was hit by irregularities.

Over a period of time, Shahzada’s notes in his letter, there have been public and institutional complaints about violation of legal parameters by provincial office of SMEDA in the process of handling and disbursing financial assistance. This provincial office is headed by Javed Khattak.

“It transpires that while administering the grant component, parameters of transparency have been violated and decisions to facilitate private business enterprises have remained absolutely subjective and without a logical base,” the letter said.

Financial assistance was granted to some businesses cited as affected by terrorism but as a matter of fact they were not among the victims. The report quoted such examples of assistance to the businesses in Kissa Khwani Bazaar, Peshawar, which include Mushtaq Printing Press, Royal Photo Studio, and Shama Photo Studio. “Physical inspection to the sites on July 4, 2014 does not support even a remote link between them and the site where bomb explosion occurred on September 29, 2013.... Even the indirect effect of crisis on these businesses is not established satisfactorily,” notes the report.

In most of the cases under reference, the report indicates, there is hardly any official report which may justify adverse effect of terrorism or natural calamity on a business. Grant Review and Management Committee (GRMC) relied more on personal wish of members and subjective criteria instead of developing and following an objective and impartial mechanism to disburse financial assistance, according to the him. He also names various mills in Swat granted financial assistance that were found closed during physical inspection. They are: Javaid Silk Mills in Barra Banda, Iqbal Brothers Silk Mills and Dagai Silk Mills. “All these mills were found closed on the day of physical inspection. Spiders have spun webs on the machinery installed in these mills,” reads the report.

In most of the mentioned cases, explains the report, the money sanctioned to buy new machines has been consumed for purchase of old stuff.

Applications accepted for issuing grants don’t bear the date of their respective submissions which makes it rather difficult to understand if the principle of ‘first come-first served’ was adhered to. It appears that intentionally a space has been created in the existing mechanism to dispose of application on the basis of personal wish than any objective mechanism, according to the report.

“Complete silence and inaction of the project management over obvious irregularities in disbursement of financial assistance is unexplainable. There hardly appears any effort to verify if disbursement is being made to the deserving and if guide lines are being followed while doing so,” according to the report.