KOHAT: Construction work on the public park, named after legendary poet Ahmad Faraz, here could not be started due to non-recovery of the huge amount from the previous runaway contractor and an unusual delay in hiring a new construction company since 2014. The project was approved in 2013.

The tehsil municipal administration (TMA), Kohat, had acquired 230 kanals of land in Jarma on the University Road for the project to provide the city dwellers with an outing place. The government had initially allocated a grant of Rs60 million for the project.

When contacted, head of the concerned department of TMA, SDO Laal Ghaffar, first agreed to provide all information about the project, but later said he did not know anything about it. He guided this scribe to one Muna Bhai, a record clerk, who said that he was a class-IV employee and could not provide any information without the permission of his boss Laal Ghaffar.

This scribe again contacted Mr Ghaffar on his mobile phone who said that it was a closed case and he just knew that funds meant for the park had been embezzled by four XENs at the start. However, he refused to name them.

Meanwhile, sources in the TMA told this correspondent that then governor Barrister Masud Kausar, brother of late Ahmed Faraz, had approved the park on the insistence of local people in 2013.

They said that an honest SDO who was interested in completing the job was removed at the initial stage of the project. Its cost could now run into more than Rs200 million, they said.

Imtiaz Ahmed, a TMA official, told this correspondent that contract of the project was given to a company in a haphazard manner. He said that the park was to be completed by the end of 2014, but the contractor ran away after receiving a hefty amount. The TMA then blacklisted the company.

He said that for the last three years he was not been in touch with the project and a new SDO, Laal Ghaffar, had been appointed to look after all the projects. When this scribe contacted him on Tuesday he said that he had taken over from his predecessor only a year ago and not read the file as yet.

Mr Ahmed said that the project would need fresh funds, including the cost escalation, and work on it could only be started from scratch which would need a revised PC-I. He said that TMA had no money to fund such a big project which was only possible if the chief minister was approached by the provincial law minister in whose constituency it was started.

People of Kohat have appealed to the law minister, Imtiaz Shahid Qureshi, to intervene into the matter and request the provincial government for resumption of work on the project.

Published in Dawn, February 10th, 2017