PESHAWAR: Provincial Inspection Team (PIT), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, has detected drastic ‘illegalities’ in the execution of Rs1 billion project meant for providing early childhood education material and furniture to government primary schools.

PIT has recommended necessary action against the senior officials at directorate of elementary and secondary education department for committing illegalities in awarding contract and release of the whole payment to the contractors prior to completion of the project.

The illegalities declared in the inquiry report include ‘issuance of illegal early childhood education (ECE) completion certificates to the contractors and releasing full payment in advance ie before June 30 2022’.

PIT has also recommended necessary action against the members of procurement committee for committing several illegalities including approval of the contractors, who were not fulfilling the minimum eligibility criteria. The report of inspection team said that one of the contractors was declared the best bidder for supply of furniture despite the fact that an FIR was already registered against him.

Inquiry report recommends action against senior officials at directorate of elementary and secondary education

Besides officials at directorate level, it has also recommended that disciplinary action may be taken against the then district education officers (male and female) of Peshawar and Bannu for releasing payment to contractors without obtaining inspection reports from the relevant committee constituted on January 28, 2022, for the purpose. It resulted in substandard, below specification and incomplete supply of furniture, said the inquiry report.

“The elementary and secondary education department may be further directed to constitute a similar committee to confirm and verify all the procured ECE material in terms of quality, quantity and specification and take appropriate action accordingly,” it said.

The probe committee said that the contractors selected for supply of furniture were not qualified because they did not have an authentic proof of registered factory and required level of capital and revenue as mentioned in the technical criteria and hence the award was unlawful for which the procurement committee was responsible.

The probe committee also inspected the supplied furniture in Peshawar and Bannu and found that the end users (schools) expressed dissatisfaction over the quality of furniture, which was broken and below specification.

The report said that the then district education officers did not obtain inspection and completion reports from the inspection committee constituted by education department and released payments to furniture contractors.

The purchase committee constituted for purchase of ECE material awarded contracts to those contractors, who were found ineligible for having no authentic proof of registered factory, authorisation of original manufacturer and required level of working capital/revenue as mentioned in the technical criteria.

The inquiry committee found that the contractors had not completed the supply of ECE material timely as per their agreement with the directorate of education department but the directorate unlawfully released all the payments to them in advance and issued completion certificate to them.

While probing the procedures, the inquiry committee found that the officials responsible for dealing the matter at directorate level were quite dubious as initially they presented a certificate to PIT that the ECE supply was completed.

However, when PIT approached the district level formation of education department for confirmation of supplied furniture, it was found that the supply of ECE was incomplete. After this exercise, the officials presented a new agreement to PIT wherein they had extended the deadline from June 30, 2022, to April 30, 2023.

Similarly, the officials at directorate issued a letter to drowning and disbursement officer (DDO) for release of fund and said that performance guarantee from all contractors was collected by the directorate but on record no authentic performance guarantees of banks were received by the directorate from contractors and instead performance bonds of an insurance company were obtained by the officials which was unlawful.

The secretary of elementary and secondary education department, Mutasim Billah was not available for comments.

Published in Dawn, November 27th, 2023