HYDERABAD, Sept 20: The Hyderabad District Council on Monday held officials of the district services and works department responsible for poor quality of works, saying they were working in collusion with contractors and receiving kickbacks.

Members of the council sought action against the officials for allowing use of sub-standard material in construction of roads which had started deteriorating. The council adopted a resolution tabled by Q. Hakim unanimously, according approval to Rs2.5 million schemes of roads in union councils so that the amount could be utilized on time.

Mr Hakim said contractors should be bound down to obtain certificates from union council nazims after completion of works. He said it had been observed that funds lapsed due to late release.

Rauf Jafri said works recently completed had started exposing their quality, adding that roads had developed cracks and they needed repair. He regretted that the district government had not initiated any inquiry into the matter.

He said the council convener, district nazim and the DCO should visit areas where schemes under Rs1.3 million funds of union council nazims were to be executed. Ibrahim Chishti said union council nazims could do nothing to ensure quality of work as they were powerless and only the district nazim and the DCO could initiate action against contractors who used sub-standard material in their works.

He demanded an inquiry into construction of a road, passing through three union councils in Latifabad, at a cost of Rs4. He said it looked that hardly Rs1 million had been spent on the project given the condition of road.

Rana Mehmood Ali Khan said union council nazims should have written to the Sindh Local Government Commission and district and provincial governments and held press conferences when they noted poor work quality.

He added that payment to contractors of such works should have been withheld and inquiries initiated against officials concerned. He also spoke of non-release of funds for development works of reserved seat members in the past three years.

He called upon the convener to take suo motu notice of the matter because Rs9 million of these councillors had lapsed for which tenders had been floated. Miran Mohammad Shah regretted that he had informed the district nazim that his schemes had not been completed but to no avail, adding that his schemes had been pending for three years. He informed the council that Rs28,000, given directly by the Sindh government, had been deducted from union councils' accounts for unknown reasons.