ATTOCK, April 17: District Monitoring Officer (DMO) Shahid Farooq has unearthed irregularities in the affairs of a government school in Hazro tehsil, officials told Dawn on Thursday.

The officials said a seven-member council of the Government Elementary School at Saleem Khan village, Haroon UC, passed a resolution on March 4 to auction five dying trees at the educational institution as part of an alleged plan to embezzle the amount with the connivance of timber mafia and some district administration officials.

The school council was reportedly dominated by blue-eyed members having close links with the headmaster.

According to the officials, the resolution was submitted the same day to the office of the executive district officer (EDO) Education who forwarded it to the district forest officer (DFO) on March 14.

The officials said the DFO on April 5 informed the school headmaster that 15 trees — seven that of Sheesham and eight that of eucalyptus — were auctioned against Rs16,843, and the amount was deposited in the bank account of the school council.

The malpractice was brought to the notice of DCO Attock Abdul Razzak on Wednesday by some notables of the village, who claimed that besides the said incident, majority of the school staff was involved in “non-academic activities”.

The DCO directed Mr Farooq to investigate into the case and present a report at the earliest.

The District Monitoring Officer, who had taken the relevant record in his custody, told Dawn that preliminary investigation revealed that though the school council passed a resolution to auction five trees, the district forest officer auctioned 15 trees that too at very low rate.

Similarly, not even a single tree among those that were auctioned was dying.

He said the school administration never complained about the auction of more trees than the number originally approved in the resolution.

Mr Farooq said some other irregularities in the school’s affairs were also reported to the authorities recently, but the issue was hushed up.

The officer concluded that facts and figures showed that all irregularities in the auction of trees were committed by the school administration with the connivance of timber mafia and other officials, and that the case needed a detailed inquiry.

The preliminary report on the trees’ auction will be submitted to the DCO Attock on Friday for further action in this regard, the DMO said.