July 24, 2008	Thursday	Rajab 20, 1429

LAYYAH, July 23: The district government has obliged dozens of its favourite officials with honoraria equivalent to one month pay in violation of instructions issued by the provincial finance department, sources told Dawn on Wednesday.

The district nazim has, however, denied the allegation of favouritism and said the whole sanctioning process was transparent and lawful.

The finance and planning EDO simply expressed his inability to comment on the score that he was a new incumbent and did not know much about this in depth.

The finance department had issued letter No. FD.SR.1/9-7/2003 on December 27, 2005 for grant of honorarium which reads as under:

“Head of the administrative department may sanction an honorarium on one month’s basic pay and the head of the attached department up to half month’s basic pay (without any maximum limit) to a civil servant for work performed by him which is occasional in character and is either laborious or of such special merit as to justify a special reward when the services rendered by him fall within the course of his ordinary duty like good performance, achievements of targets or any special assignment related to the post. Competent authority may sanction such honorarium to a civil servant irrespective of his pay scale if he is otherwise eligible.”

Referring to the letter issued by finance department, District Nazim Malik Ghulam Haider Thind sanctioned honorarium to 13 doctors and other officials of DHQ Hospital Layyah through letter number ZN/Ly/475-80 dated July 20, 2007 in recognition of their extraordinary performance during the visit of the governor of the province to the district and their day-to-day official business under the supervision of district nazim.

Those who received honorarium include Dr Zeeshan-ul-Haq Mirza (eye specialist), Dr Muhammad Tariq Ameen, Dr Kausar Aziz, Salma Nasir (charge nurse), Qaisar Rahim Khan (senior clerk), Muhammad Naseer Tariq (operation theatre assistant), Muhammad Tariq Durrani (dresser), Muhammad Abid (dispenser), Kaneez Fatima (female ward servant), Zahoor Ahmed (guard), Zafar Iqbal (water carrier) and Hameeda Bibi and Muhammad Ramzan (sanitary workers).

The nazim had also obliged 46 officials of his personal staff, district council secretariat and attached departments by rewarding them honorarium equivalent to one month pay through letter number ZN/Ly/402-20 dated July 10, 2007.

Talking to Dawn, former MPA Fazal Hussain Sumra maintained that this was only one example of nepotism of district nazim and the only merit of these officials was their personal loyalty to the nazim.

He urged the provincial government to get special audit of the whole tenure of incumbent district nazim conducted as huge public money had been paid in violation of the instructions of the finance department to some favourite officials and that money should be recovered and deposited back in the exchequer.

When contacted, Finance and Planning EDO Abdul Rehman Khaga expressed his sheer inability to comment maintaining that as he was recently posted in the district and that his predecessors had processed the matter of grant of honorarium and he did not know much about it.

District Nazim Thind maintained that the district assembly had duly approved funds for the grant of honorarium.

The then finance and planning EDO put up an office note and after due process, the district coordination officer, who is principal accounts officer, gave the approval, the nazim said and added that in sequel of the above, he had sanctioned honorarium to these officials.

On a query, the nazim admitted that an audit objection was raised but he hastened to add that the district government would justify the sanctioning of honorarium and that he had summoned a meeting of officials concerned in this connection.