CM to inaugurate incomplete project

[Lahore_Real_Estate]

LAHORE – After spending over Rs 4 billion in the name of establishing state of the art laboratory for investigating cases of organised and heinous crimes, the Punjab Government is all set to inaugurate Punjab Forensic Science Agency and Laboratory on Sunday (tomorrow), still incomplete after fifth extension and that too even without the facilities available at other ordinary labs, The Nation has learnt.
Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif will inaugurate the lab near Thokar Niaz Baig, over 16 months behind the scheduled time of its completion.
Interestingly, DNA and forensic toxicology, the specialities unavailable at other government labs in the province, will be made available at the forensic lab after one year. Not only that, a number of single table specialities available at already existing labs in the province will be started at a later stage.
According to the insiders, the Punjab Home Department, instead of imposing daily fine of Rs 1 million on the contractor for delay, extended the completion date five times.
Even after five times extension in period of completion of the project, the contractor has failed to carryout the work as per the signed agreement.
Heavy rains during the monsoon exposed quality of construction work, big cracks developed in concrete walls and pillars and rainwater flow from entrance gate to the lobby. Covered area of laboratory is 1,65,0000 square feet and cost of construction is Rs 5,411 per square feet as against normal rate of Rs 2,000 per sft.
The Punjab Government is already investigating misappropriation and corruption in the construction of building at much higher rates and purchase of equipment, vehicles and software before completion of civil work and hiring of staff at hefty salary over two and a half years back.
For the last over two and a half years, the govt is paying Rs 2.4 million salary to 32 highly paid contract and on deputation employees every month.
Before the completion of construction work, the government acquired software worth over Rs 260 million besides importing sophisticated equipment worth over Rs 750 million from the US. Besides that, 14 APV vans and 200 laptops worth over millions were purchased over a year earlier when they were required.
Cash strapped Punjab govt spent a hefty amount of Rs 110 million on providing training to 32 highly paid employees, but all returned home without getting a certificate from the Cleveland State University.
Humaira Shafi and Noor Fatima were among the batch of 32 officers getting training from the Cleveland State University to serve at the Punjab Forensic Science Agency and Laboratory. Both the ladies were pregnant at the time of their departure last year, but the question that whether the Punjab Govt was aware about the actual situation or not remained unanswered. The pregnancy of Humaira Shafi was about seven and a half month while that of Noor Fatima it was about six and a half month. On realising the actual situation, the prudent US authorities, however, sent the other lady Noor Fatima back to Pakistan before her giving birth to a child. The authorities asked the lady to go back and return to the US for resuming training after giving birth to the child in the homeland. Patrick Coyne, Director of Training Institute in the US, is now behind the bars for four years and nine months for corruption related crimes. Coroner Frank P Miller with whom the then Chief Secretary Nadeem Hassan Asif signed MoU for training has been removed by new management. All three Board of Commissioners of the Institute had also been terminated on the charges of malpractices.
Software for the lab was purchased at 11 million US dollars. It is not analytical software and is just for storage of data.
Local firms were denied opportunity to participate on the pretext of accreditation of lab from the US. Pakistan National Accreditation Council for Laboratories was not consulted for the reason better known to the then Project Director Nayyar Mahmood and to the then consultant and now DG of the Punjab Forensic Science Agency Dr Ashraf Tahir. Dr Ashraf Tahir was forced to resign from his US job after he was caught by his institution of doing two jobs at the same time. Six Forensic Scientists of DNA/Serology were also sent for training to an institute in the US, not approved by American Board of Forensic Toxicology. These could have been trained at Centre of Excellence Molecular Biology Punjab University, the institution functioning with the collaboration of the USAID. Millions of rupees were also lost as chemicals and kits imported from the US expired without use.
First-ever international standard forensic science laboratory to investigate high-level criminal cases was scheduled to start functioning near Thokar Niaz Baig on 20 kanal and 18 marla covered areas in July 2010. The facilities in the laboratory when it will be fully functional at 20 kanal and 18 marla near Thokar Niaz Baig include audio video research, computer forensic, probe into crime death scene, DNA, firearms, fingerprints, drugs, Forensic Pathology, Forensic Photography, Polygraph, Trace Chemistry, Investigation, Serology, Investigation of documents and other things.