LAHORE: Traffic wardens associated with the monitoring and operations of 20 forklifters in 10 circles of the city are allegedly involved in misconduct and embezzlement as the City Traffic Police authorities are allowing them to receive fines from motorists on the spot and depositing these with the official account at their will.

An ongoing inquiry into one such case also raises questions about the use of forklifters without any standard operating procedures and fine amount for the right purpose.

Besides, there are complaints that ‘fake challan books’ are being used at some places.Sources claim as no external audit of the CTP’s lifter head has taken place since the introduction of the Traffic Wardens Service in 2006, an uncalculated amount has been embezzled by wardens on the pretext of internal audit.

On the other hand, the CTP usually holds both internal and external audits of fine ticket books in connection with multiple fine heads regularly.

Interestingly, no time period has been set for depositing lifter fine with the official account contrary to fine tickets issued to ordinary motorists who are bound to submit fine within 10 days.

A traffic warden, who used to operate the forklifter some time ago, said one lifter usually issued 18 fine tickets daily to motorists who were charged Rs200 fine per vehicle against fine ticket on the spot.

He said either the monitoring officer or warden in-charge of each lifter was supposed to submit challan details and cash in the official CTP’s account in the National Bank of Pakistan’s Town Hall branch

According to the warden the average collection of all lifters under this head is approximately Rs3 million a month.

The warden said lifter in-charges usually manipulated three slips of each fine book as they usually handed first slip over to the violator, submitted the second in the official record and misused the third one by reusing it rather than submitting it to the official record.

He said the misuse of lifter fine was increasing primarily because of fine collection on the spot contrary to other fine categories in which violators submitted fines in the banks.

Warden Rizwan Ajmal, who was the monitoring in-charge in Mughalpura circle to check routine fine tickets and tickets related to forklifter, is facing an inquiry for alleged embezzlement of Rs830,000 fine under lifter head.

The inquiry, which is being held by the Headquarters SP, will determine as to why the warden did not submit lifter fine of at least two months to the CTP’s account on a monthly basis and why challan clerk Farrukh Aftab, who is a traffic warden and has been enjoying the same post for about five years, did not hold internal audit of the lifter head.

Actually, the head monitoring in-charge is supposed to check the records but the challan clerk has assumed the job.A source told Dawn that the challan clerk was bound to receive record used fine books from monitoring officers of 10 circles on a monthly basis, maintain the bank record after counter-verifications but he apparently did not do it in case of Mughalpura circle.

Mr Ajmal, in his application to the inquiry officer, denies personal use of Rs830,000 collected under lifter books in April/May 2014 and passes the buck to the challan clerk with an argument that the latter is responsible for issuing final report on audit challan book, diary, court challan and lifter audit. He states that the challan clerk also passes all directions including presence and absence of wardens.

He alleges that challan clerk Farrukh is also involved in directly receiving lifter fine cash for audit purpose and using it for his personal business with the help of some monitoring officers.

Ajmal further stated the clerk started clearing audit of the lifter head up to one month late by changing dates in books, adding earlier the monitoring officer or lifter in-charge used to submit fine with slips in the bank.

Mr Aftab, when contacted, denied the allegations of the warden saying the inquiry against the latter was recommended by the then chief traffic officer after as in-charge challan section he noticed that Ajmal did not submit Rs830,000 of April fine till May and did not submit fine books timely.

He said the warden misappropriated the money himself and accused him of using money for personal use. He claimed the department had proper mechanism of colleting fine tickets, submitting it the section concerned and to the bank after counter-verifications by the challan clerk. He said the monitoring in-charges were responsible for collecting daily record of fine tickets, receiving expired books and submitting them to the relevant office after internal audit. He further claimed the lifter head had both internal as well as external audit.

Chief Traffic Officer Tayyab Hafeez Cheema claimed the lifter head was independently created on the orders of the Lahore High Court in 2009 and was aimed at collecting money for the welfare of the force. He said the CTO had nothing to with the expenditure of the money as an independent committee constituted by the government was empowered to spend money on the traffic police welfare under the PPRA rules.

He said he had no such complaint about misuse of lifter fine money, adding the officials were bound to submit fine within a month after internal audit and counter-verifications.

The CTO said the inquiry involving a warden alleging misuse of lifter amount by the challan clerk was initiated two days ago. The inquiry would be held on merit and the guilty would be dealt according to law.

Published in Dawn, August 22nd, 2014

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