MUZAFFARABAD, March 7: Top government officials in Azad Kashmir are reported to be making full use of their perks and privileges without let or hindrance right under the nose of the supposedly shrewd government of Sardar Attique Ahmed Khan. In one bizarre case of its kind senior officers got new Parado jeeps purchased for themselves when their TA/DA bills were refused by the finance ministry.

The story goes that five senior most officers, three of them belonging to the Central Superior Services who are commonly referred to here as “lent officers”, have got themselves allotted five additional luxurious vehicles at the cost of Rs25.3 million to the taxpayers. Official documents show that these vehicles — all brand new five-door Parado jeeps — were procured recently from funds earmarked for Mangla Dam raising project and were allotted by name to chief secretary Javed Majid, additional chief secretary (development) Capt Mohammad Yousaf (retired), secretary finance Fahimullah Khattak, senior member Board of Revenue Farooq Niaz and secretary Services and General Administration (S&GAD) Fayyaz Akhtar Chaudhry as members of the project’s implementation (executive) committee.

These officers already had at least two to four posh vehicles under their use and provision of one more vehicle to each of them has met with public criticism besides causing resentment in the department. One official alleged that the beneficiaries were ex-officio members of the so-called implementation committee and had nothing to do with the on ground implementation of the project because they were based in Muzaffarabad whereas the project was located in the southern Mirpur district. Moreover all of them already had official transport facility and there was no justification for them to grab additional vehicles from any project.

Another official pointed out that the allotment of the vehicles to these officers by name was unprecedented which meant “they could retain them even after being transferred/posted out of AJK.”

When this correspondent asked AJK prime minister’s adviser on information, Raja Mohammad Yasin Khan, at a press briefing if the vehicles could be allotted to any officer by name he replied in the negative. However, both the adviser and minister candidly admitted their ignorance about the said allotment.

The public relations officer of Resettlement Organisation of Mangla Dam Affairs, Chaudhry Mohammad Rasheed, who is based in Mirpur, told this correspondent that the purchase/allotment was decided by the executive committee from the funds (2 per cent of total budget) meant for administrative expenditure and not from the (budget for) compensation money for the affected people of the Rs61 billion project.

The Resettlement Organisation of Mangla Dam Affairs is headed by a retired officer appointed by the AJK government on contract. More than a dozen officers/engineers from the AJK side were working full time on this project, according to Mr Rasheed who could not explain why full time vehicles were provided to officers whose job in the project was merely “part-time.”

The action was taken when the AJK finance secretary refused to provide TA/DA to the members of the executive committee from the AJK exchequer. The Resettlement Organisation then decided to provide them with “merely transport facilities” from its administrative budget, he explained.