Judicial commission summons officers concerned over violation of orders

Published July 15, 2018
RETIRED Justice Amir Hani Muslim visits a water supply pond being built in Shikarpur on Saturday.—Dawn
RETIRED Justice Amir Hani Muslim visits a water supply pond being built in Shikarpur on Saturday.—Dawn

KARACHI: The Supreme Court-mandated commission on water and sanitation in Sindh on Saturday ordered chairmen of municipal committees, chief municipal officers and other officers concerned of different towns to appear before it on Tuesday and Wednesday for violating its orders.

The head of the one-man commission retried Justice Amir Hani Muslim directed chairman of Khairpur Municipal Committee, chief municipal officer and other officials concerned to appear before it on July 17 for failing to spend funds on essential services.

He also asked Khairpur deputy commissioner to hold an inquiry into the funds being utilised by the municipal committee and submit a report within a week.

After visiting different areas of Khairpur and Moro, Justice Muslim also ruled that not a single penny would be utilised by the municipal committee on any account under the garb of development or otherwise.

It observed that the municipal committee failed to comply with the directives issued in February and utilised funds on salaries, pension and POL instead of essential services, including water supply.

The commission said that there were five water reservoirs and they were full of filth and shrubs. The chief municipal officer had no idea about the amount to be spent on the water supply and there was no cleaning mechanism for the beds of water ponds.

During an inquiry by the commission, it transpired that the local government department had assigned the municipal committee the functions which fell within the preview of the public health engineering (PHE) and other departments.

It ruled that work on all schemes assigned to the municipal committee for execution should be stopped forthwith till further orders and the detail should be provided to the commission reflecting the amounts which were disbursed under different heads.

It observed that creating an exception was an abuse of authority, therefore, secretary of local government was asked to file financial details of the last three years.

Meanwhile, the commission also directed the local administration of Moro to address complaints about drainage, make two reverse osmosis plants functional and drain out sewage from a school in order to make it operational.

DC ordered to get graveyard land vacated

SUKKUR: Justice Muslim issued notice to executive engineer of public health engineering department (PHE) over delay in completion of drainage and water supply scheme in Qureshi Goth, old Sukkur area, and directed Deputy Commissioner Rahim Bux Maitlo to get graveyard land vacated.

The judge ordered divisional superintendent of Pakistan Railways Sukkur division to appear before him on Tuesday over his failure to issue a no-objection certificate for the Qureshi Goth scheme despite passage of four months.

He said during visit of water supply and drainage installations in Qureshi Goth, Pir Murad Shah Colony and Saeed Abad that officers concerned had been ordered to explain reasons for slackness in work.

He directed Sukkur municipal commissioner to drain out stagnant water from Pir Murad Shah graveyard and construct boundary wall around it within four months. In case of non-compliance, funds of Sukkur Mun­icipal Corporation wou­ld be frozen, he warned.

The municipal commissioner told the judge most of 45 acres land of graveyard had been encroached upon leaving only a few acres. The judge ordered immediate action against land-grabbers.

In Jacobabad, Justice Muslim paid surprise visit to the site where water supply scheme was being built and inspected the material being used in its construction.

An official of USAID briefed the judge about the scheme and said that work on the scheme was going on at a rapid pace and the town residents would soon be supplied purified and sweet drinking water.

SHIKARPUR: Justice Muslim reprimanded an officer of public health engineering department, Agha Naeem, when he found substandard material being used in constructing embankments of oxidation ponds in a water supply scheme in Hajano village near here on Saturday.

He ordered the embankments be rebuilt afresh and the expenses be borne by the contractor Iqbal Shaikh. All payments to him be frozen till Deputy Commissioner Syed Hassan Raza reported his satisfaction with the quality of work, he said.

He asked the DC about the scheme of cattle colony and was told the land for the cattle colony had been handed over to provincial building department and its PC-I had been sent to the secretary of services and works department. No action had been taken yet on the PC-I.

Justice Muslim ordered the secretary to appear before him in this regard on Wednesday.

On district judge’s complaint that chairman of municipal committee interfered in several matters, Justice Muslim ordered him to write to the secretary of local government and recommend to him to suspend the chairman and transfer his powers and those of chief municipal officer to the DC for six months.

Later, he visited Shikarpur Civil Hospital and expressed disappointment over lack of cleanliness as he saw pools of sewage stagnating in many parts of the hospital.

Published in Dawn, July 15th, 2018

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