LAHORE, Dec 13: Stating that the protests in his department were being staged by a few vested interests fearing action against their corruption, Communication and Works Secretary Fawad Hasan Fawad said here on Saturday he was not against anyone and merely wanted optimum and honest utilisation of development funds.

“We are not sending anywhere the clerical staff of the chief engineers of highways and buildings asked to sit in Rawalpindi and Multan for closely watching projects under them. We have already told them (the staff) they will be absorbed in Lahore and therefore they must not indulge in any protests,” he said at a news conference.

Almost the entire department has reportedly joined the protest against the policies of the new secretary, who, however, clarified there was no deadlock and only a section of ‘corrupt’ officials were defying the government to escape legal action that, he warned, would soon be initiated.

The secretary said the protests in his departments were being lodged after the steps he had taken for making the staff deliver, and ensure optimum and honest use of development funds. “The development in Punjab does not match the annual Rs300 to Rs400 billion uplift funds the province has been receiving for the past five years,” he said.

He said SDOs of the department drawing allowances of project directors were managing the Asian Development Bank-funded development initiatives like the construction of Pindi Bhattian-Chiniot-Kamalpur road while sitting in Lahore, and they were now protesting because they had been asked to go to the project areas. “The bank (ADB) has refused to further fund the project because of their (officials’) behaviour,” he added.

The clerical staff of the buildings and highways chief engineers (north and south) was protesting against the shifting of their (the chief engineers’) offices from Lahore to Rawalpindi and Multan. The chief engineers had no objection to the shifting but the clerical staff was demanding withdrawal of the decision.

The secretary said soon after deciding to shift the headquarters of the chief engineers, a delegation of All Pakistan Clerks Association (APCA) had met him and he had assured it that none of the staff members would be sent to other cities.

“I had guaranteed that they will be absorbed in Lahore without their seniority being affected, because we have vacancies and are going to expand the department. But still they are unjustifiably resorting to agitation,” he said.

The secretary said another element was protesting against him on the ground that he was asking for the arrest of some officials, which the protesters think was without any reason. In fact, he said, he had ordered arrests of only those against whom charges of corruption and inefficiency had been proved.

Citing many examples of what he said corruption and inefficiency, he mentioned the newly-built Faisalabad Institute of Cardiology where the construction was substandard. “Isn’t it the basic duty of the government to hold the wrong doers responsible for their misdeeds? We have been directed to proceed against every wrong doer and none of them is protected,” he said.