KARACHI: Without getting approval of its finance body and syndicate, the cash-strapped Karachi University (KU) administration has taken a major financial decision that involves spending of at least Rs10.5 million, it emerged on Monday.

According to sources, university officials have estimated that at least Rs10.5 million would be required to make some flats suitable for living for employees. According to a July 1 notification issued by the KU house allotment advisory committee, the university has offered unfinished residential flats to its staff with a promise that the amount spent on their completion will be reimbursed to them in instalments.

“The unfinished/incomplete newly built flats will be offered to those who are willing to complete the remaining work in these flats by themselves and occupy them with immediate effect. The amount spent on their completion would be adjusted by returning 10pc of the total amount per month till full recovery (release) of the spent amount.

“This offer has been approved by the competent authority (the vice chancellor) and the house allotment advisory committee on April 9, 2014. Interested members of the staff would be given this offer according to their seniority on the waiting list of ‘C’ type house. The last date for application is July 15, 2014,” says the notification signed by advisory committee convener Prof Anwer Zaidi.

According to sources, university officials have estimated that at least Rs10.5m would be required to make the 12 flats suitable for living.

Speaking to Dawn, teachers expressed surprise over the move and said that the finance body normally handled monetary matters and then presented them in the syndicate for approval.

“Although the vice chancellor can take such a decision, it is required for transparency that all formalities are met under university rules,” said a senior KU teacher.

Strangely enough, he said, the notification was released in July though the vice chancellor had given its approval over two months ago, in April to be precise. “This means the administration had plenty of time to place this matter before the finance committee and the syndicate for vetting and approval,” he added.

The teachers also questioned as to how the expenditure that the employees would make would be calculated and verified by the university. They said that the lack of transparency could create problems for those who would invest their hard-earned money in such a housing scheme.

Project record

It is interesting to go through the project record and see how it was approved and executed after prolonged delays. Documents show that a building and land utilisation committee compiled results of a technical and financial proposal for some new departments and buildings that included the development of multi-storey blocks for staff residence. It was finally approved in a meeting by Prof Mohammad Qaiser (then the acting vice chancellor and now the vice chancellor) in January 2005.

The minutes of the meeting were approved with Prof Sohail Barkati (now retired) in chair. He was nominee of the vice chancellor (Prof Pirzada Qasim Raza Siddiqui) at that time and currently serves as adviser to the vice chancellor (Prof Mohammad Qaiser) after retirement.

According to its PC-1, the venture — a Public Sector Development Project (PSDP) — would cost Rs38m and funded by the Higher Education Commission. Later, sources said, the university committee on the basis of the engineer’s estimates increased the project cost to Rs52.5 million and approved a shortfall of Rs14.5 million, but no revised PC-1 was apparently submitted to the HEC.

In a letter to the university, the then project director monitoring PSDP-financed projects Salahuddin Qureshi said that the KU received Rs615.427 million till June 2010 against the Rs1,222.6m cost for six projects and there was still Rs46.482 remaining unspent. Similarly, Rs132.541m was released for five projects in 2010-11 and an amount of Rs38.36m was unspent till May 2011.

“The implementation status of the projects reveals a dismal picture. All the six projects were delayed from 18 months to 62 months,” Mr Qureshi stated in his letter.

“It has been observed that delays in the implementation of projects were mainly due to late award of contracts. About 18 to 24 months were taken in the award of contracts. This is due to the reason that proper studies regarding design of buildings were not carried out at the time of preparation of PC-1,” he explained.

When contacted, Prof Zaidi admitted that the decision lacked approval of the finance body and the syndicate and said that would be taken in due course of time. To justify the move, he said the vice chancellor of the university had approved the committee’s proposal.

“We have released the notification to see how employees respond to the idea and we have received a number of applications.

“The flats have been lying incomplete for eight years and there are many employees who are desperately looking for residential flats. We are trying to address this issue,” Prof Zaidi added.

A survey had been carried out after which it was estimated that Rs10.5m would be needed to complete the infrastructure as the flats currently lacked water and sewage lines, electricity and gas supplies. Some flats were already occupied and 12 were to be given to the staff, he said.

“Once major installations are completed, employees will have to spend between Rs400,000 and Rs500,000 for internal works,” he said.

He said the university would start saving money on account of house rent currently being paid to the employees once they occupied the flats.

When questioned over lack of transparency, he said that a committee comprising representatives of teachers and non-teaching staff had already been set up to see how the decision would be implemented.

Published in Dawn, July 15th, 2014