PESHAWAR: The former administration of the Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan misappropriated most of the Rs80 million funds allocated for the construction of an academic block on the university’s Buner campus in financial year 2016-17, official documents show.

The Buner campus was upgraded to a university (University of Buner) in Nov 2016.

Official documents available with Dawn show that the 2016-17 KP budget had allocated Rs200 million for the construction of the academic block on the AWKU’s Buner campus when Dr Ihsan Ali was the university’s vice-chancellor.

Dept recommends action against culpable official

They show that the government had released Rs80 million for the purpose but the university spent a meagre amount to lay the academic block’s foundation misappropriating the rest.

Work on the block, which is meant to cater to 2,050 students, has been stopped since March 2017.

Project director of the University of Buner Mohammad Farooq told Dawn that the university students were the ultimate sufferers of the long delay in the academic block’s construction as they attended classes in a commerce college’s building.

The campus was established in the Government Commerce College Buner’s building, while it was upgraded to the university in Nov 2016.

The project director said had the academic block been established at a proper time, the students would have moved there to continue education in proper academic environment.

The official documents revealed that the then director (works) of the AWKUM had also changed the approved design of the academic block in violation of the procedure.

The design was prepared by the Associated Consulting Engineers (ACE).

The documents showed that the contractor was demanding the release of Rs46.38 million for work done by it, while the consultants insisted that according to original design, the cost of work carried out on the project amounted to Rs13 million.

Sources said in light of the delay in the academic block’s construction, it was impossible for the contractors to complete the work with the allocated funds as during the last two years, the prices of construction material had increased significantly.

The documents revealed that the official involved in the misappropriation of funds had quit the university job to join the Pak-Public Works Department, Islamabad, and was not approachable to the university.

The monitoring and evaluation directorate of the provincial planning and development department has presented a report to the university on the matter.

In the report, the directorate recommending the action against the former director (works) for the misuse of funds.

The directorate directed the VC and treasurer of the AWKUM to transfer the remaining Rs58 million funds of the project to the University of Buner.

Regarding changes in the original design of the building, the officials, who prepared the M&E report, insisted that the issue was of great concern and therefore, it would be referred to the P&D department for convening a high-level meeting of all stakeholders under the chairmanship of the additional chief secretary of the department for examining the matter and guide the higher education department for further course of action.

The directorate also asked the AWKUM to hand over all records of the academic block construction to the University of Buner.

The AWKU Mardan had earlier refused to hand over the records to the Buner varsity.

The AWKUM spokesperson and register was not available for comments.

Published in Dawn, October 7th, 2018