CHITRAL, July 26: The district coordination officer Chitral and district Nazim allegedly committed corruption on massive scale inflicting a loss to the national exchequer to the tune of Rs8 million.

Speaking at a press conference here on Friday, MNA Maulana Abdul Akbar Chitrali said that in September last, the provincial governor had awarded a sum of Rs25 million for the improvement and black topping of Garam Chashma Road.

After receiving the money, the then DCO Mumtaz Ali Khan retained the work instead of transferring and executing the work through the Works and Services (W&S) department and in connivance of the district Nazim flouted the tenders himself. Dilating upon the anomalies in the process, the MNA told that on Oct 4, 2002 the tenders for the work was published in an unknown Urdu daily and an English daily Frontier Star both published from Peshawar.

The provincial information department was ignored and the advertisements were issued directly from the offices of the DCO. The tenders were opened just the next day (on Oct 5) while according to the procedure, there must be a gap between the publication of the advertisement and the date of opening the tender.

He added that the scheme is still to be approved but the DCO proceeded accordingly. Maulana Chitrali added that to benefit the coterie of the district Nazim, the work was split into three portions and the tender was restricted to A-class contractors while after split amount fell under the competency of B-class contractors.

Due to the limited time after the publication of the advertisement, only four contractors participated in the competition.

One of them was his brother-in-law while the other three are known as his close associates and they did for the success of his son in the election who was contesting for the seat of NA from Chitral.

The three contractors were assigned one job each according to the predisposed plan on enhanced rates as no real competition took place.

The other anomaly perpetrated by the DCO was that the earnest money received from the contractors was still lying in the files instead of paying to the government treasury.

The MNA said that the story of corruption did not end there but the just on the occasion of the general elections, 0.8 million rupees were paid to each contractor as secured advance despite the fact that there was no provision of it in the agreement between the contractors and the government.

He pointed out that the target for the completion of the work has been as in the files as June 30, 2003, but neither any measured bill has been passed nor the advanced amount has been recovered.

The MNA reiterated that according to the code of local government, the Tehsil Municipal Administration cannot execute a scheme with an estimated cost exceeding one million rupees but the district Nazim is now trying to get it transferred to the TMA to continue his practice of corruption as the new DCO has decided to transfer the work to the W&S department.

The MNA said that the chief minister should send the case of corruption to the National Accountability Bureau.

He further demanded to retender the work to save the public money and endure its completion within the current financial year.