LAYYAH: Education Department officials have deprived 25 elementary schools of their non-salary budget meant for the welfare of students in the district.

Dawn learned that only to please political bosses, the district administration ordered the education authority to arrange funds to make the newly-constructed District Public School (DPS) functional.

Then MPA Qaisar Abbas Magasi got approval for the construction of Danish Public School in 2010 at Chowk Azam. A Danish School requires 200 acres -- 100 acres for boys wing and as much for girls wing.

The government tried to acquire forest department’s land for the Danish School Authority but failed after the court banned transferring forest department’s land for other purposes.

Due to unavailability of the land, then Dere Ghazi Khan commissioner Hassan Iqbal changed the project scheme to the DPS from the Daanish School and allocated 16 acres for the project. After the tendering process, construction began on April 25, 2014, with a cost of Rs61.837 million. Both wings were scheduled to be constructed in eight months.

Once the construction was over, the school could not be functional because neither the education department nor Daanish School Authority owned it.

Magasi lost the 2018 elections and his successor, who joined the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf after winning as an independent candidate, pressured the local administration to make the school functional.

The deputy commissioner posted nine female teachers and three class four employees on Jan 15.

To arrange funds for the purchase of stationary and furniture, District Education Officer Ahsan Fareed asked his favourite school headmasters through the assistant education officer to bring cheque books and non-salary lodging registers to his office, said a source in the education department on the condition of anonymity.

He said that 30 headmasters of elementary schools of Layyah handed over Rs50,000 each from their non-salary budget to the DPS account, of them 15 elementary schools are from Karor tehsil, and 10 Chaubara.

The Federal Board of Revenue has been deprived of 4.5 per cent income tax and 17 per cent sales tax because of the mass transactions, says income tax inspector Farooq Gul, as the headmasters instead of utilising funds for the benefit of the students of their schools, paid cash to the department which is not documented.

When contacted, District Education Authority Chief Executive Officer Shaukat admitted that the department had assigned temporary duties of teaching and non-teaching staff with the approval of the deputy commissioner.

“To secure the government assets and in public interests, the department has taken measures to make the school fully functional as the MPA has been taking a keen interest in the opening of the school,” Mr Shaukat added.

He denied the spending of non-salary budget funds of elementary schools.

Punjab Teachers Union leader Manzoor Ahmed told Dawn the government schools were short of the teaching staff but the authorities posted public school staff at the DPS which was definitely the abuse of authority.

He demanded the education minister conduct an inquiry into the misuse of non-salary budget of the schools.

Published in Dawn, March 11th, 2020