MULTAN, March 13: A serious flaw has been detected in the fiscal statement of the district government for 2003-2004, as against the existing 14,249 posts of teachers, funds are allocated for 12,736.

This was admitted by the local government authorities at a meeting held here on Saturday with the Punjab Accountant-General Wazir Ahmad Qureshi. District Nazim Riaz Husain Qureshi, DCO Muhammad Ijaz Chaudhry, EDO (education) Nazeer Ahmad Chaudhry and EDO (finance) Dr Muhammad Aslam attended the meeting.

The Nazim urged the AG to conduct a thorough inquiry into the matter so that responsibility could be fixed against the inefficient and negligent officials. He said the district government would write to the AG office for inquiry in black and white.

The AG observed that non-payment of salaries to the officials was rather an economic crime. He directed the district government to get approved the budget for the vacancies of the affected teachers from the district council as early as possible and in the meantime he would permit an interim relief in order bring an end to the economic woes of the affected families.

He said he was surprised to see the district government's statement as it appeared to be just an expense statement which had no mention of the income. He directed the local government to spend the Citizen Community Board funds of Rs35 million before the end of the ongoing fiscal year on the development schemes in the district.

He pointed out that the district government had over-drafted an amount of more than Rs40 million against the expected expenditures by the end of the first half of the current fiscal.

The EDO (finance) explained that the over-drafted amount was withdrawn under the head of the teacher's salaries. He said though the provincial government was supposed to pay ad hoc staff of some five colleges of the district from its kitty, that too was being paid through the district government resources.

Similarly, no permission was sought from the finance department before making recruitments of some 237 educators. He said last year the district had a deficit budget to the tune of Rs80 million and this was due to the shortfall in education sector's budget by Rs75.3 million.

The EDO (education) informed the meeting that Rs11.2 million had yet to be paid to the teachers as move over before the advent of the devolution plan while Rs9.7 million were liable to be paid after the establishment of district government.

He said the local government had stopped paying salaries to the ad hoc staff of the five colleges while it had also not paid rent of the schools housed in the rented building within the limits of Multan Municipal Corporation.

He said some of the affected teachers had been suffering for the last 15 months only due to a technical mistake in the budgetary allocation for the education sector.