KOHAT: Officials of anti-corruption department, Kohat region, on Friday raided a warehouse and seized several sacks full of new textbooks meant for distribution among the government school students free of cost.

The department’s officials also arrested two Afghan refugees who had got the books on payment for selling them as trash at cheap price.

The department’s assistant director, Ali Hassan, got information on Friday that a large number of textbooks were stored in a warehouse. The team raided the place and recovered five bags full of textbooks on which ‘free from government, not for sale’ and ‘session 2014’ was clearly stamped.

According to preliminary investigations, the arrested persons stated that they had bought the books from a man belonging to Karak district. However, they stated that they did not know the name and whereabouts of the man.

Anti-corruption officials arrest two Afghan refugees

The people have demanded of the anti-corruption department to also include the executive district education officers, male and female, in the inquiry so that it could be determined whether all the schools in rural and urban areas had been provided with the free textbooks.

ACTION AGAINST NGO: District Development Advisory Committee chairman MPA Ziaullah Bangash has ordered action against an NGO for alleged violation of the agreement on provision of jobs to local people.

The MPA ordered the action against the Participatory Village Development Programme, NGO, which had been violating the agreement under which it must gave 80 per cent jobs to local people and 20 per cent to outsiders. He alleged that the NGO had not been giving jobs to the desired number of local talented youth despite repeated warnings in this regard.

The NGO is presently looking after 2,000 internally displaced families from Fata in Kohat and providing them water through hand pumps, taking care of sanitation by constructing latrines and distributing hygiene kits under its WASH programme.

He asked assistant commissioner, Kohat, Farrukh Atique to investigate the matter and report to him as soon as possible. Mr Bangash claimed that he had also received complaints against Hashoo Group, NGO. He said that he had asked the anti-corruption department to investigate the complaints.

A head of an IDP family from Parachinar which shifted here in 2007 told Dawn that they had the first right over jobs in the NGOs working for them. He said that their return was not in sight so the members of IDP families should be given priority in jobs.

CRACKDOWN: The excise and taxation department here on Friday started crackdown on alleged tax defaulters and sealed 11 shops on the KDA Town road.

The excise and taxation inspector, Tariq Masood, said that they had served notices on hundreds of shop owners for payment of taxes, but nobody wanted to pay the taxes.

Published in Dawn, June 7th, 2014