KOHAT, May 13: The district nazim of Kohat, Seth Gohar Saifullah, has approved the recommendations of the district accounts committee to initiate an inquiry into the alleged financial irregularities committed by the former district government as mentioned in the audit report, it has been learnt.
Mr Gohar made this rather difficult decision when pressure was reportedly exerted on him by the chairman of the district accounts committee, Shakeel Haider, who is also the nazim of the union council Gumbat.
In response to a demand made by the accounts committee, he said: “I will take whatever action the house approves regarding the misappropriations, embezzlement and other malpractice pointed out in the audit report and make efforts for the recovery of the taxpayers’ money from the ex-officials of the tehsil municipal administration and elected representatives.”
He said that people at the helm were supposed to be caretakers of the resources obtained from the people and the same should be utilised for the betterment of the masses, adding that officials and elected people should not misuse their authority.
He said: “We will have to start reforming ourselves before pointing fingers at others which is the best way to keep society clean from corruption. Each individual must hold himself accountable and set an example for others.”
Mr Gohar said that they had been governing the area in a much better manner and all financial allocations and utilisation of funds had been made in a transparent way.
He informed the committee that they had already sent a case against the two ex-officials of the provincial local government to the National Accountability Bureau. The NAB had completed the inquiry in one case and presented a charge sheet in the court for the recovery of Rs 10.98 million from a tehsil municipal officer.
The annual audit report for 2003-04 submitted to the provincial government in 2005 had attributed bankruptcy of the municipality to unlawful appointments, illegal remissions to favourites in addition to improper maintenance of accounts and non-recovery of taxes and fines from contractors.
The total amount of illegal payments, delay in the recovery of taxes and unauthorised expenditure by nazims and councilors is stated to be more than Rs 11.99 million. The accounts committee wants to probe and recover this amount from their predecessors.
The audit officer had regretted in the report that the TMO, the district council and the accounts branch did not follow the prescribed local council rules of bookkeeping and made payments without approval from the competent authority and audit.
The audit branch requested higher authorities to look into the malpractice of the TMA staff and financial discrepancies themselves as it had been unable to streamline the financial system despite exercising their best efforts during the last three years.
The report says that the material of the old jail building was auctioned for just Rs 970,000 against its actual estimated cost of more than Rs 3 million.
Later the contractor submitted a simple application to the zila nazim for a remission of Rs 570,000 in violation of the agreement. The nazim granted him remission after discussing the matter in the council which had no authority to do that.
Similarly, the TMA paid an amount of Rs 282,648 to various nazims and councilors to take the people from Kohat to Bannu for the public meeting of the chief executive of the country. The representatives failed to justify the expenditure.
Likewise, precious books worth Rs 90,211 were found missing from the public library, according to the audit report. No serious efforts were made on the part of the TMA to either recover the books from members of the library or a fine from them. The TMA failed to even submit a reply to audit objections raised vide letter No. 26/RAO/TMA/KT dated 31-01-2004 on the subject.
The audit report said that the contractors who were to be blacklisted were being awarded contracts as usual without clearing old outstanding dues, fines, taxes, etc.
The TMA purchased a laptop computer worth Rs 172,000 on the request of the DCO for his personal use who upon his transfer took it with him. The report says that the laptop computer comes under luxurious category and after being recovered from the DCO by the district government was still lying unutilised for the last seven months.
The most interesting aspect of the audit report is that the cash-starved TMA made a payment of Rs 5,000 to its legal advisor as reward for “good performance”.