LARKANA: The district accounts officer (DAO) informed the Larkana circuit bench of the Sindh High Court on Wednesday that he had found 237 ghost employees in the education and literacy department and 56 in the health department.

The officer stated this in a report submitted in compliance with the bench’s directive to verify employees lists and find out if there were any ghost employees in the departments of education, health and police.

The division bench, comprising Justices Shamsuddin Abbasi and Amajad Ali Sahito, had issued the directives while hearing a petition filed by advocate Mumtaz Ali Jesar.

The director general of the Sindh monitoring and evaluation cell was directed to appear in person and file a detailed report regarding procuring the attendance of teachers and the process of issuance of form-II to stop the salaries of the absentees.

But he was called absent while the deputy director of the cell said he had received the direction in late hours; therefore, the DG did not turn up. At this juncture, the director of school education said the DG was in contact with them.

The bench observed: “We [bench] are noticing this act of the DG with dismay, as he is deliberately avoiding appearing before this court and warn him to remain careful in future.”

The medical superintendent of Chandka Medical College Hospital said he had issued a letter to the Larkana DAO for blocking the IDs’ of the ghost employees.

“We have also noted with dismay that the secretary education, Sindh IGP and health department secretary, who were asked to upload the lists of their employees with names, parentage and CNICs on their official website but still compliance had not been made by them,” the two judges bench observed. “Once again we are directing them to upload the list of the employees and furnish report within a month’s time,” it added.

The court found the replies of the show-cause notices issued to the project director (PD) and registrar of Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto Medical University (SMBBMU), for not appearing in hearing on Dec 14, satisfactory and vacated the notices, directing them to remain careful in future.

The PD in his report said that the Higher Education Commission (HEC) and Sindh government were approached for a grant-in-aid of Rs1,820.124 million to complete their (varsity) projects, but they did not receive any response yet.

The bench directed the HEC and Sindh government to provide required funds to the university for completion of their projects.

Larkana Additional Deputy Commissioner-I Ms Rabia Siyal appeared on behalf of the deputy commissioner and submitted that technical assistance from the planning and development department was required to finalise the PC-I for the construction of a sewerage scheme for Larkana.

The case was adjourned for Dec 28.

Published in Dawn, December 22nd, 2022