HYDERABAD: The anti-corruption establishment (ACE) has submitted its inquiry report to Sindh government about veracity of claim that several billion rupees had been embezzled in the funds for the Right Bank Outfall Drain-II (RBOD) project.

A third-party validation by Wapda into RBOD-II has also been finalised and its report is awaited.

The ACE report verifies findings of a previous inquiry conducted by an senior irrigation officer, Zahid Shaikh. It is likely to undergo a scrutiny before it is submitted to Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah.

The ACE report found that embezzlement of Rs4.48bn was certainly there.

ACE had started its probe last year after Mr Shaikh’s inquiry was finalised in July 2019 and found that payments of billions of rupees on account of flood emergency seemed to be bogus.

According to project and department sources, ACE had called various officials including assistant executive engineers (AXENs) to record their statements and many AXENs had denied having signed the papers, including payment vouchers, they were confronted with by ACE inquiry officer.

“These officers mostly served in ‘Reach-III’ of the RBOD who flatly refused to confirm that they had signed these vouchers and their actual signatures could be sent for forensic examination for matching with those available on papers,” said an official.

The officers admitted that they had prepared estimates of works but did not sign papers as was claimed in the first inquiry. They claimed that measurement books (MBs) were manually recorded in engineering works be it of road, sewerage, drainage or any other civil works.

The papers like original vouchers, estimates and technical sanctions were said to be lying with National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and they could only be verified by forensic experts when NAB would hand them over to ACE or irrigation department.

The amount of Rs4.48bn was shown to have been utilised in 2017-18 and 2018-19 during flood emergency although no floods were reported.

An amount of Rs9.5bn was reportedly released by Sindh government in 2017-18 for expenditures in RBOD-II and the then officials/officers had spent money in the project without waiting for approval of project cost-I (PC-I) that had been long overdue.

The PC-I was approved subsequently but the project management officials concerned had approved work orders and estimates in 2014-15 without having administrative approval in their hand in absence of PC-I’s revision.

“Bill of Quantity (BoQ) were prepared without estimates for works of 2014-15 and PC-I had not been approved at that time,” said an official.

RBOD-II’s PC-I was revised in 2017 which had increased the project’s cost to Rs61.985bn after a long delay. It has been revised twice. It was first revised from Rs14bn to Rs29bn ever since the project was started in 2001 by the then president, Gen Pervez Musharraf.

The inquiry report has mentioned names of irrigation officials/officers – who had been posted in RBOD project – during period when embezzlement had taken place and they are likely to be prosecuted.

According to one project management source, “19 officers are named in inquiry report to face embezzlement charges in case FIR is lodged against them”.

When issues of various nature cropped up, Sindh chief minister had formed a steering committee in March 2019. It has representation of different departments, Wapda, project management and irrigation secretary. It has held many meetings since Sept 2019 and decided to have a third-party evaluation of RBOD-II done.

A source claimed that “some names might be excluded if senior ACE officers find out that their names are unnecessarily mentioned but it is up to ACE hierarchy to take such decision”.

ACE had called the then RBOD-II superintending engineer, Imran Shaikh, for recording his statement but he did not turn up. ACE believes that it requires another inquiry into the matter to come to the conclusion as to how such a huge embezzlement has taken place.

“What I have done in project is to ensure its completion because Supreme Court was interested in its early completion in order to ensure rehabilitation of Manchhar Lake that was being destroyed due to effluent discharge into it. The second option was that project should be wound up,” says Imran Shaikh.

He said that “expenditures were made in anticipation of PC-I’s revision by federal government and all these expenditures exist on ground and are verifiable,” he explained. He said he was told by ACE that he would be called for statement. “I am being unnecessarily dragged into the inquiry”, he said.

RBOD-II — a crucial project of effluent drainage that starts in Jamshoro and ends in Gharo -- has remained incomplete as yet. Its capacity has been increased.

Finally, a six-member committee headed by Nasir Hanif, adviser (projects) Wapda, was formed which conducted the validation in line with decision of project steering committee and its report was now awaited. “The committee is also supposed to give a way forward for the project,” said a source.

RBOD-II is to carry effluent from Sehwan to Gharo and it is to be connected with RBOD-I or Main Nara Valley Drain (MNVD). RBOD’s carrying capacity has been increased from 2,271 cusecs to 3,500 cusecs. Physical work on it had remained suspended for around two-and-a-half years before it has resumed in November last year.

The project is now being monitored by the steering committee.

Published in Dawn, February 29th, 2020