CHITRAL: The residents of Golen and Koghuzi villages on Tuesday postponed their planned protest after Wapda and Korean construction company, SAMBU, assured to meet their demand of recruiting local people in the under-construction Golen Gol hydropower project.

Talking to Dawn from Golen village on telephone, convener of the action committee, Safdar Ali Kash, said that the affected people of the project had given the deadline to Wapda as well as the Korean construction company, SAMBU, after which work on the site was to be stopped forcibly.

He said that the decision of deferring the protest was taken on the assurance of Wapda and SAMBU authorities, while the newly posted district police officer had also approached them to extend the deadline.

Mr Kash said that the affected people were adamant to the appointment of non-local people against the non-technical posts, the persistent refusal of SAMBU authorities to restore the irrigation channels and roads of Golen village.

EMBEZZLED FUNDS RECOVERED: The anti-corruption establishment (ACE) in Chitral has recovered a huge amount of embezzled public money from the food and communication and works departments during 2014 and the first two weeks of January, this year.

Sources in the ACE told Dawn that during the course of preliminary inquiry into the public accounts of different departments it transpired that a bungling of funds had been committed by the concerned officials and the contractors.

He said that as the officials concerned offered to deposit the embezzled amount with the government treasury, an amount of over RS40 million was retrieved.

The source said that an embezzlement of Rs25 million had been detected in the black-topping and widening of Warijun and Sweer roads by the C&W department, while in the food department, misappropriation to the tune of Rs15.641 million had been made in the grain godowns of Gohkir, Kosht, Terich and Bang Yarkhun.

Published in Dawn January 21st , 2015

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