KARACHI: In a much-delayed step apparently aimed at appeasing the powers that be, Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah on Thursday dissolved the board of directors of the corruption-ridden Fishermen Cooperative Society and appointed a senior bureaucrat its administrator.

Last month, the FCS came under the spotlight when the Sindh Rangers arrested its vice-chairman Sultan Qamar Siddiqui and three directors — Muhammad Khan Chachar, Rana Shahid and Kamran Abbasi.

While FCS chairman Dr Nisar Morai had reportedly escaped from the country, the vice-chairman and the three directors are still in Rangers’ custody for 90 days and being grilled for their alleged involvement in offences relating to kidnapping, targeted killing and extortion.

Although nothing was submitted on record, it was leaked to the media that the FCS vice-chairman had allegedly confessed to have delivered “70 per cent of corruption money to Bilawal House”.

On Thursday, the Sindh CM dissolved the society’s board of directors with immediate effect and appointed Livestock & Fisheries Secretary Noor Mohammad Leghari its administrator for a period of six months.

The new administrator was told to conduct a thorough inquiry into the affairs of the society and all previous matters and furnish a report with his recommendations/findings within 30 days.

Officials said that the decision was taken in view of serious complaints of mismanagement and irregularities in the society.

They said that the chief minister also asked the administrator to inform him about the mechanism of payment of salaries and day-to-day expenses of the society, its daily income and mechanism of depositing the same money in the bank account of the society on a weekly basis.

Previously, the CM had ordered an initial inquiry into the affairs of the FCS and assistant registrar of the cooperative societies-VI, Karachi had conducted it.

The inquiry report showed that FCS chairman Dr Morai was out of country, three of its directors had been arrested on charges of irregularities, while others gone underground.

It suggested that the society had lost its existence, and recommended that it might be superseded and an administrator appointed to run its affairs.

The FCS was established in 1945 to import fisheries inputs such as nylon thread and fishing nets. When the fish harbour was established in the late 1950s, the FCS was given the responsibility to manage and operate it and also to work for fishermen’s welfare. The FCS nominates its agents called mole holders who provide facilities to fishermen in selling the catch and charge commission half of which is kept by the mole holders and the other half is given to the FCS to support its operations.

Its board of directors comprises 15 directors — eight nominated by the Sindh government and seven elected by general body.

Currently, it has more than 6,000 members all along the coastal belt and creeks of the province. The chairman used to be a government nominee (usually a bureaucrat) while the vice-chairman represented the fishing community. But political interference has increased since the 1990s with the result that until recently both the chairman and vice-chairman were political appointees.

Published in Dawn, July 17th, 2015

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