KOHAT: The National Accountability Bureau, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, has started investigations into illegal appointments and other anomalies in the tehsil municipal administration (TMA), Kohat. Besides, the anti-corruption department has launched its own inquiry into the alleged corruption in under-construction plazas and those which failed to attract businessmen after their completion.

Official sources said that successive governments had adjusted many people in TMA. They said that TMA had been facing financial crunch and it could not pay salaries to its employees on time. They alleged that the retired people were also facing difficulties and could not get their pension without paying bribe.

The officials said that in the past the total amount of staff salaries was around Rs3.5 million, which had surged after illegal appointments to over Rs10 million. They said that the inquiry was under way about the 128 surplus employees, who were appointed recently. They said that the TMA officials had now refused to adjust more people on the requests of lawmakers from the district.

The sources claimed that an employee, a close relative of TMA official, was in Dubai, but his brother had been collecting the salary regularly in his place.

They said that NAB had been investigating the appointment of 240 people adjusted by the lawmakers during the previous government. They said that NAB had taken important files and also briefly interrogated some officials. The sources said that the newly-elected lawmakers from PTI also monitored the payment of salaries and other TMA affairs, but later abandoned the practice after their men were also given employment.

They also said that the Jail plaza, in which the TMA made big investment, had failed to attract traders due to leasing out of shops through a middleman. They said that the middleman was paying Rs400,000 and selling the same shops for Rs700,000 to Rs1 million each. They said that same was the case with the Tehsil plaza where the contractor had stopped work delaying its completion by years.

Published in Dawn, December 1st , 2014