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| January 08, 2007 | Monday | Zilhaj 17, 1427 |
Road to XEN house eats up Rs1.2m
MURREE, Jan 7: A sum of Rs1.2 million was spent on the construction of a road allegedly leading to the house of executive engineer (roads) Rawalpindi. On the other hand, construction of an adjacent road from Daryagali to Dhaka has been left halfway due to negligence by both the contractor and the department concerned, notables of the area told Dawn during a survey.
They said about two years back the contract of the Daryagali- Dhaka road project was given to Shaukat Hayat Abbasi by the district government. The contractor handed over the work to his uncle, Afzal Abbasi who had already been blacklisted by the highway department.
On public protest, inquiries were held but no action was taken against the contractor. Rather, a bill of Rs2.3 million out of the total allocated amount of Rs4.4 million was paid to the contractor despite the fact that he had neither completed even 10 per cent of the work nor visited the site for the last about eight months.
On the other hand, a road leading to the house of Executive Engineer of the department, Farhat Muneer, was constructed in a record time and is the best among the link roads of the Murree town. When the road was damaged by landsliding soon after completion, it was reconstructed by spending a huge sum of money.
During a visit to the area, the notables including Raja Arif Abbasi, a former councillor; Javed Abbasi, Tahir Abbasi, Haji Sidiq and Waqar Abbasi said work on a road for a population of about seven thousands was not being completed, but that leading to the house of an officer of the department was constructed twice in a record time.
Local UC nazim Abid Abbasi said, “We held talks with the contractor during a local jirga and asked him to complete the project. The contractor assured the jirga that he would complete the work, but later backed out of the promise.”
The nazim said he had also asked the department concerned to take action against the contractor, but to no avail.
When the Deputy District Officer (Roads), Mukhtar Bajwa was contacted, he said the house did not belong to the executive engineer but was owned by one of his relatives and he had just provided consultation for the building of the road.
When asked that in what capacity he had provided consultancy for the project, he had no answers. Mr Bajwa said they were planning to take action against the contractor. He said the locals were holding a jirga with the contractor but it was not the responsibility of the residents to hold jirga with the contractor of the department.
The notables of the area urged the authorities concerned to take action against the contractor. They said the government should also take action against the officials of the department for using public fund for their personal interests.
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