PESHAWAR, Feb 17: The labour union of the All Agencies Public Works Department has demanded that the NWFP governor should take notice of embezzlement of Fata development funds.

Speaking at a joint news conference at the Peshawar Press Club on Friday, the union’s central president Ghani Subha, South Waziristan chairman and central secretary Obaidullah Jan Niazi alleged that officials of the works and services highways, South Waziristan, had embezzled millions of rupees earmarked for the construction of roads in Fata.

They said the PWD department used to issue fake invoices for work on development schemes, which existed only in files.

They sought an inquiry against the PWD officials stationed in Fata.

The leaders alleged that senior officials took a fixed amount each month from the salaries of operational staff, particularly those detailed at Badragga. If an employee raised his voice against the extortion, he was forcibly sent home on different charges, they said.

They said: “The avarice of senior officials has no bounds. Often they take away Kalashnikovs and mobile phones of their subordinates.

The operational staff posted at Badragga is the worst target of their venal practices.”

They often fined daily wage earners and other lower-grade employees on one pretext or the other.

The poor staffers were also forced to make donations on the weddings of their seniors’ siblings, they claimed.

The union leaders said when an employee retired, the senior officials demanded a fixed cash amount out of his gratuity and pension funds.

“They also demand money on routine transfers and postings in the tribal agencies. If employees refuse to fulfil the demands, they are threatened with the possibility of a departmental inquiry,” the labour leaders claimed.

They alleged that the PWD officials had recently recruited a road inspector thorough the backdoor and did not advertise the post in newspapers. They had also illegally recruited 15 persons on the posts of sobedar, sobedar-major, naib sobedar and hawaldar.

All the newly-recruited persons were related to a sub-divisional officer of the department, while fresh posts were distributed among the tribes on their physical strength in the area, they alleged.

The officials, they alleged, had yet to release the salaries for January of 16 employees of Badragga, which had created resentment among the tribes.