KOHAT: The district finance department has constituted a monitoring committee to check alleged irregularities in the ongoing development projects being executed by the tehsil municipal administration and to send the cases to NAB for probe.

A notification issued on Monday from the office of the executive officer finance, Wahidur Rehman Khattak, who will head the committee, said that complaints had been received from public and lawmakers about massive corruption and use of substandard material in the development projects worth millions of rupees and slow pace of work.

The purpose of the committee was to implement the vision of the PTI-led provincial government of ensuring corruption-free society, good governance and transparency, Mr Khattak, the committee head, told Dawn.

The committee would be responsible for supervising all the projects sanctioned by the district development advisory committee headed by MPA Ziaullh Bangash.

The notification said that to ensure transparency in the use of funds and material five activists of the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaff had also been made its members who were district secretary general Sajid Iqbal, tehsil president Ishtiaq Qureshi, Mohammad Qasim, Mohammad Arif and Mohammad Riaz.

The committee chairman and PTI district secretary general vowed not to make any compromise on the quality of projects and that the contractors violating guidelines would face action.

Wahidur Rehman Khattak told Dawn that reports about corruption in any project would be sent to the director NAB Peshawar for action. He also urged the media to highlight corruption in development projects so that dishonest officials could be taken to task.

Meanwhile, various political and social activists have objected to the appointment of EDO finance as chairman of the monitoring committee, claiming that the post of EDO finance had been officially abolished years back by the then provincial government. They alleged that some members of the committee, who were also members of the recently formed ‘Carvan-i-Ammal’, had been accused of corruption.

Published in Dawn, February 10th, 2015

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