PESHAWAR: Zamong Kor, an institution set up amid media fanfare for street children, was at the centre of controversy on Wednesday following sacking of its director on charges of neglect and gross mismanagement.

The director, retired Major Haris Khattak, raised counter allegations against the monitoring committee, its chairman and members, accusing them of violating rules. He said that he had resisted attempts by the committee to seek rumination for voluntary work from a charity organisation.

He also charged that the chairman had bought a Rs2 million car and demanded repair charges when it met an accident.

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The chairman, Syed Imtiaz Hussain Gillani, and monitoring committee in a statement refuted Mr Khattak’s allegations and said that the counter-charges were a desperate attempt by the sacked officer to hide his own poor performance exposed through a government inquiry.

Television news outlets showed images of a departing Mr Khattak surrounded by crying children at the institute. The images drew immediate criticism and condemnation, with some calling upon PTI chairman Imran Khan to look into the matter.

However, in a statement, Mr Gillani maintained that Mr Khattak was fired last week following an inquiry by monitoring and evaluation wing of planning and development department, which carried out performance audit of the institute.

Mr Khattak denied having been fired and claimed instead that he had resigned on Wednesday morning.

The inquiry report discovered that the director had been appointed in gross violation of the rules, the statement said.

However, the statement did not say that how this “gross violation of rules” was discovered after such a long time.

The report said that Mr Khattak failed to implement activities to improve the lives of children. In fact he practiced the opposite, it added.

Raising question on his performance, the inquiry report questioned his priorities as his own office was decorated and renovated, security and administrative staff was hired while children with their unkempt hair and shabby dresses spoke of lack of care for them, it added.

The ousted officer accused the chairman of buying a car while the latter blamed him for spending Rs1 million on renovation of his office without prior approval of the institutional management committee.

The government inquiry report had proposed the IMC to immediately remove Mr Khattak and recommended a fulltime professional replacement.

On August 17, IMC unanimously decided to immediately terminate the services of retired Major Harris Khattak.

In the IMC meeting, it became apparent that Mr Khattak did not have a contract agreement with ZK in which pay and other emoluments were mentioned. It was observed that the original copy of the notification of his appointment was missing, and there was only a copy on record.

The probe revealed that the duration of employment shown in the aforementioned notification was tampered with to show the expiry of his contract as 2019 instead of 2017.

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2017