KARACHI: The Anti-Corruption Estab­lishment (ACE) has, acting on the instructions of Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, registered multiple FIRs over Rs4.4 billion fraud in the Right Bank Outfall Drain-II (RBOD-II) project.

The FIRs had been registered against chief engineer-cum-project director of RBOD-II Munawwar Bozdar (now retired), superintendent engineer RBOD-II (BPS-19) Waqar Ahmed Qadri, SE Imran Shaikh, XEN Ghaffar Soomro, AXEN Altaf Memon and 16 others, said an ACE spokesperson on Wednesday.

The RBOD-II scheme was conceived and streamlined for disposal of drainage effluent from RBOD-I to the sea in an environment-friendly manner without interference with freshwater bodies like Manchhar Lake and Indus River.

The project started in 2003 with Rs14bn and was later revised to Rs29.217bn and revised again to Rs61.985bn. On Nov 12, 2018, a reference was received from some engineers wherein serious charges of irregularities in funds’ disbursement were levelled.

On the instruction of chief minister a team of irrigation ministry conducted an inquiry into the matter in April 2019 and then the planning and development department, with the approval of the chief minister, referred the matter to the ACE for necessary action.

The ACE, through an inquiry and technical inspection, concluded that the so-called expenditures incurred against flood emergent works or flood damage of Rs4.482bn were “completely bogus and fraudulent” thereby causing loss to public exchequer.

Findings of the inquiry

The inquiry findings submitted to ACE chairman Mohammed Waseem say the standard operating procedure (SOP) for bill verification from consultants and its vetting from the forum concerned was not followed. There was no provision of flood damage in the approved PC-1 of RBOD.

The report says SPPRA (Sindh Public Procurement Regulatory Authority) rules and regulations were violated. No tenders were called and even SPPRA rules for emergency award of contract were not invoked. “On top of it, there was no flood like situation in the river during the period in question”.

It said 2017 and 2018 were flood-free years. The flood damage showed in year 2018 “is highly surprising due to the reason that in this period the river was not even in a low flood situation”.

The inquiry finds that many of the supply orders were issued in the months of May, June and July which was not a flood period. “The record of Division-III is not available, except payment vouchers.”

The inquiry finds: “If there were flood damages in 2017 and 18 and it was necessary to address the damage, the matter should have been discussed in project steering committee and should have been reported to the competent authority and separate funds should have been demanded.”

The inquiry finds that most of contractors to whom payments were made were not regular contractors, having no PEC certificates, having no history of carrying out such work.

The report says while scrutinising the record of original works, it emerged that the then superintendent engineer (SE) RBOD Imran Ahmed Shaikh invited tenders in 2014 without approval of the revised PC-1 and “not only this but he issued work orders in the capacity of SE for 88 contracts whereas work orders were to be issued by XENs”.

“He did not bother to get technical sanction and approval of the tenders. He got works started and incurred liabilities of more than Rs4bn which were cleared after three years from the releases in question of the years 2017 and 2018.”

In the FIR (No 4/2020) dated March 3, 2020, Jamshoro ACE circle officer has nominated chief engineer-cum-project director RBOD-II Munawwar Bozdar (BPS-20 and now retired), RBOD-II superintendent engineer (BPS-19) Waqar Ahmed Qadri, SE (BPS-19) Imran Ahmed Shaikh, XEN division (BPS-18) Abdul Ghaffar Soomro, assistant XEN (BPS-17) Altaf Ahmed Memon and 16 others.

Another FIR (No 5/2020) dated March 3, 2020, nominates CE Munawwar Bozdar, SE Waqar Ahmed Qadri, SE Imran Ahmed Shaikh, XEN Ayaz Ahmed Memon, XEN Ghulam Hyder Buriro and eight others. The third FIR (No 1/2020) names CE Munawwar Bozdar, Waqar Ahmed Qadri, Imran Ahmed Shaikh, M. Faheem Soomro, Qarar Raza Shah and 15 others.

Published in Dawn, March 5th, 2020