THATTA, Nov 27: Agencies in Thatta have initiated an inquiry regarding gross misappropriation in the accounts of the district executive office (Health) as a result of which the national exchequer has incurred huge losses.

The health department has been incurring losses since the last couple of years.

Reliable sources told this correspondent that the then District Health Officer, Dr Aftab Jokhio had detected 28 temporary ghost employees, who had been serving over and above the sanctioned strength, as a result of which the national exchequer had incurred a loss of Rs100,000.

The salary bill of the district office alone, which had since 1996 shot up to Rs280,000 per month, was now around Rs180,000.

In order to check further losses, it was made mandatory that the payment of salaries would be made through cross cheques which would be chanellized through the in charge of the health department concerned.

But after implementation of the devolution plan, the executive district officer (EDO), health, became the authority in place of the all-powerful district health officer. However, the accounts of the district kept on being handled by his assistant, i.e. the district officer, administration and budget, Dr Hafeez-ul-Haq Memon.

It may be recalled that Mr Memon had already been found guilty of embezzling ‘diet and miscellaneous’ funds at the Shaikh Zayed Medical Centre, Mirpur Sakro.

On being proven guilty by an inquiry committee, conducted by Dr Ishaque Memon, Dr Hafeez was shunted to Mirpurkhas. As punishment, he had to pay Rs 100,000 to the treasury.

According to insiders, Dr Hafeez had been facing allegations at Mirpurkhas also including harassing female staff of the health department.

Sources said that all of a sudden on Nov 12 Dr Hafeez stopped handling the accounts of the district and directed the accounts branch to get all the cheques and bills signed by the EDD himself.

On Nov 20, he redirected the accountant to prepare a cheque of Rs50,000 through current account cheque No771353 in the name of one Dilip Kumar, an office clerk, out of the excess salaries being deposited regularly, which had earlier been detected and withdrawn by the former district health officer. The cheque was signed by Dr Hafeez himself though he had no authority to do so.

The amount as yet remains unaccounted for.

It is also alleged that the district officer, administration, Mirpurkhas, had restarted exhorting money from the doctors, the majority of whom belong to Karachi, who remain mostly absent from their duties in Thatta. He is alleged to be taking between Rs1,000 and Rs2,000 on a monthly basis from each of them.