KARACHI: Authorities have found hundreds of ‘ghost employees’ across the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) and towns, with many being employed at two government institutions at the same time, who are drawing salaries regularly and receiving perks for both jobs without performing duties at any institution.

This emerged on Thursday when the newly appointed Sindh Local Government Minister Saeed Ghani sought details of the projects under the World Bank-funded Competitive and Liveable City of Karachi (CLICK) and the progress made so far.

The minister in a surprise visit to Click office also sought the progress report on a project which promises verification of local bodies’ employees and assures their presence at their jobs through biometric attendance system.

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CLICK project director Asif Jan Siddiqi while briefing the minister informed him about the ongoing projects and the overall progress in each of them. He also informed the minister about the multi-billion projects being carried out in different Karachi towns.

“Under CLICK initiative, verification of employees of Sindh local government department, KMC and town levels were carried out,” the minister was told.

“Some 950 workers of KMC alone were found as ghost employees who are only drawing salaries without performing their duties. Similarly, there are 200 people were found who were employed by two public sector organisations simultaneously and they are drawing salaries and perks from both without serving anyone of them.”

In 12 towns, the CLICK director said, 35 “ghost employees” were identified and the process was almost over with few formalities still to be met before wrapping up the verification of employees project.

“After these towns, you should now go after the union councils and identify the ghost employees at that level as well,” the minister was quoted as saying in a statement issued after the meeting.

“Once the verification process is done, we need to make sure the presence of all employees at their jobs through biometric attendance system. The salaries of all employees would be transferred to their bank accounts and their accounts would be synced with their biometric attendance system. They would get salaries only after ensuring their presence at their jobs.”

Mr Siddiqi also told the minister about the newly developed technology-based system for property tax collection, said the statement. In Karachi, it said, total 800,000 properties and structures were registered but only one fourth of them paid the annual tax.

The statement added that “under the proposed plan, by 2026 more than three million property structures in Karachi would be registered and targeted to bring them under the tax net. This would help revenue generation at grassroots level of union council.” The minister was also briefed about the ongoing and upcoming projects under the World Bank and KMC funding.

“In next financial year, total eight new community centres, two playgrounds, dozens of key road links would be built in the city,” said the statement, referring to the number of projects designed for the business capital.

Published in Dawn, March 15th, 2024