ISLAMABAD, Oct 7: People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) has accused the government and the Earthquake Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Authority (Erra) of committing financial irregularity in the earthquake relief funds and called for making public details of donors’ money and the Presidential Relief Fund.

Releasing a factsheet at a press conference, PPP leader Senator Dr Babar Awan said Erra and the government were violating public procurement rules 2004.

He said the authority had appointed so-called consultants at undisclosed exorbitant salaries for spending relief and reconstruction funds, meant for affected communities as beneficiaries. He asked Erra to disclose the names and salaries of the consultants.

He said transparency in the disbursement of the funds provided by the donors was shrouded in mystery and nobody was aware of the actual amount collected in Presidential Relief Fund.

He said the nation had a right to know the actual amount collected in the Presidential Relief Fund, in whose name and in which account the said fund was deposited, who was the beneficiary of bank profits of this bulk money and for what reason the fund was not placed at the disposal of Erra.

He said Erra Chairman Altaf M. Salim admitted before a special committee of the Senate that even a penny had not yet been spent on earthquake disaster relief.

He asked the authority to explain as to why 35,000 relief cheques given to the quake survivors bounced from the banks.

Mr Awan said it had been pledged that modern disaster management equipment would be purchased to effectively handle such natural calamities in the future, but lamented that no such machinery had so far been purchased. The PPP senator said some 66,000 quake-hit families were still without permanent shelters while a second winter was approaching.

He rejected the claim made by President Gen Pervez Musharraf at a recently held Erra review conference that most of the quake survivors were in transitional shelters.

Our Staff Reporter Adds: PPP Information Secretary Sherry Rehman has slammed the regime for its inability to maintain transparency in its much-publicised earthquake rehabilitation and reconstruction programme.

Ms Rehman in a statement on Saturday pointed out that one year ago the parliament had demanded that its committee be made part of the accountability process but the regime had refused. Today, she said, when the credibility of Erra was doubted by international donors, the whole issue had become an embarrassment for Pakistan.

“How can the present Erra chief ensure transparency when most of his time is spent in looking after his scandalously defaulting business enterprises? It is a matter of grave concern that the reins of Erra have been given to a man who is embroiled in the bank scandal, which had been maintaining fictitious accounts and lending money illegally to its own business ventures, after which the bank was taken over by an administrator upon intervention by the SECP,” she observed.