August 23, 2007	Thursday	Sha’aban 9, 1428

KOHAT, Aug 22: The Tehsil Municipal Administration has claimed detecting misappropriation amounting to millions of rupees in the collection of loading and unloading charges by officials of the agency and elected representatives from local industries, sources alleged while talking to Dawn.

The alleged wrongdoing came to light after officials from the NWFP’s local government department visited the Kohat Cement Company (KCC) and took into custody the record of payments made to the TMA under an ‘unauthorised tender’ purportedly awarded to a relative of a naib nazim on the trial basis for just Rs400,000 per year, the sources said. The record of payment of Rs400,000 has also been missing, they added.

The sources accused the naib nazim of collecting Rs200 per truck on account of loading of cement and unloading of coal at the KCC. The contract has now been cancelled -- just three months after an auction for award of the contract.

The irregularity surfaced at a meeting of the Tehsil Municipal Staff Association against non-payment of salaries. The president of the body said the TMA had no money to pay them, but on the other hand, were pocketing millions of rupees illegally as tax from the local industry.

The president of the association told Dawn that when talks between them and the TMA over the issue of delay in the payment of salaries failed, they wrote to the provincial secretary of the local government department seeking an inquiry into the illegal tax collection.

The Local Government Department then took custody of all record of payments made by the KCC to the contractor without offering the tender for public auction.