PESHAWAR, July 23: The Joint Action Committee (JAC), NWFP, has accused the MMA government of spending about Rs3 million public money for a consultation on the proposed Hasba bill.
A committee member, Bushra Gohar, said in a statement that the MMA government's selective consultation on the proposed Hasba bill here on July 4, 2004, was mere a waste of taxpayers' money in a resource-constrained province.
"The MMA government has not fulfilled its promises about good governance and ending the VIP culture," said Miss Gauhar. The press statement termed the July 4 consultation an event to promote the proposed bill as several weeks before the event, roads and streets across the province had been decorated with banners and advertisements landing the bill.
"In a province where the public do not have access to education, health care adequate nutrition, sanitation and potable water, the MMA government wasted a huge sum of money and used government machinery to organize this biased consultation," said Miss Gauhar.
The committee which claims to have obtained official figures, said the MMA government showed Rs2,946,280 as total expenditure on the half-day consultation. Around 1,000 participants were invited to the event, including 160 from Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan, the AJK and Islamabad. But only 700 attended the discussion.
All the participants were given airfare, provided accommodation and TA/DA for three days. The claim for air-conditioned accommodation in a local hotel is Rs2,200 per participant travelling from outside Peshawar, but the actual rate of the hotel is Rs500-700.
Similarly, Rs80 was charged for the folder containing a pen and folder provided to each participant. Its actual cost is Rs10. The committee said that lunch served at Nishtar Hall cost Rs450 per head, whereas anyone could have it for not more than Rs150.
The participants were divided into two groups. One was served lunch at an expensive hotel, which was against the policy of the MMA government to rid the society of VIP culture, the press statement said.
About 1,200 copies of the proposed bill were printed for the event. The organisers charged Rs100 for a copy, whereas the actual cost was Rs9.75, the JAC claimed. When Dawn contacted, NWFP Minister for Law and Parliamentary Affairs Malik Zafar Azam termed these allegations baseless.
Mr Azam said the consultation was financed by the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal and the law department had only helped the government in arranging the event. But he could not tell the exact amount spent on the event.
The JAC claimed that Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani had intervened to get released the remaining amount, but without much success. He had been advised to use his discretionary funds, the JAC claimed.