SARGODHA, July 29: As many as 15 sub-engineers of the Tehsil Municipal Administration have been summoned by the Anti-Corruption Establishment for Friday to explain the charge of illegally pocketing Rs40,000.

Reports said a local trust accountant, Mirza Daud Rasool, was arrested by ACE inspector Matiullah more than a week ago. The TMA sub-engineers, including Muhammad Akhtar Bhutta, Amjad Gulzar and Ahmad Khan, allegedly collected Rs40,000 from various employees of the administration and the trust to hand over the amount to the ACE inspector to favour bail of the accountant before judge.

However, the inspector opposed the bail plea of the suspect during the hearing on Thursday. The judge dismissed the plea. An interesting situation arose in court when some of the sub-engineers inquired from the inspector why he had opposed the bail despite receiving the amount.

The inspector denied receiving any amount and requested the ACE additional-director to inquire into the matter. It was revealed that Wasikullah Qureshi, the tehsil officer (infrastructure and services), and head clerk Khalid Qureshi had embezzled the amount the employees had collected to save the accountant. The ACE has started inquiry into the matter and asked all the sub-engineers to explain why should not they be charged with corruption.

INQUIRY ORDERED: Irrigation department chief engineer Usman Akram has ordered an inquiry into alleged embezzlement of about Rs13 million allocated for construction and repair of drains. The project has yet to be initiated even after a year.

Residents of Sobhaga and LNB drain areas alleged that contractor Khalid Rauf had taken Rs9.2 million for the Sobhaga drain project a year ago, but no work was done. When people complained against the contractor five months ago, they said, inquiry officer Younis Bhatti (an XEN) told them that he had asked the contractor to complete his work. However, they said, no work had been done so far.

The chief engineer has once again deputed Mr Bhatti to probe the matter. He is learnt to have lost the inquiry file. It is pertinent to mention that the irrigation department authorities have allocated another Rs4.2 million for the project.