Corruption Unlimited

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Irregularities in funds allocated for Sindh Mines and Mineral Development Dept

PAC unveils corruption tales of yet another department

KARACHI: The Sindh Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has found massive financial irregularities in the funds allocated for the Sindh Mines and Mineral Development Department.

Talking to the media on Tuesday at the Sindh Assembly, PAC Chairman Jam Tamachi Unar said, “Due to the conspiracies of some WAPDA officials, the Chinese companies could not initiate work to generate electricity from the Thar coal reserves and, as a result, the country is facing prolonged load shedding. The WAPDA officials hatched this conspiracy, as they feared that after the generation of electricity from coal reserves in Sindh, the Kalabagh Dam project could not be executed.”

Unar directed that letters be sent to the Sindh governor and Sindh chief minister regarding the unauthorized transfer of funds to personal bank accounts during the year 2003-04. He said that an amount of Rs 4.438 million was transferred from the Sindh Coal Authority’s account in National Bank of Pakistan (account number 2496-3) to the personal accounts of two employees, Mithi’s Deputy Chief Geologist Altaf Hussain Chandio and Assistant Director Ghulam Mustafa Bajeer, in violation of rules.

It was further revealed that in the office of the Mines and Mineral Development Department director general, the contract for royalty and cess on coal for the year 1998-99 was awarded to contractors, in which the department had to suffer Rs 307.142 million losses due to incorrect fixation of reserve prices.

An amount of Rs 53.651 million was lying but no expenditure was incurred on the maintenance and development of roads in the coal mining areas by the department, in violation of the provisions under the Sindh Financial Act 1993. “Five cases where the contractors had failed to deposit the installments of royalty within due dates, an interest of 12 percent was not charged, in violation of the terms and conditions of the contract. Losses due to the non-charging of interest were Rs 24.528 million,” said Unar.

During the year 2003-04, income tax amounting to Rs 11.453 million was not recovered from the contractors, in violation of the terms and conditions of the contract. Loss to the government on the auction of surface minerals was Rs 7.722 million, while non-adjustment/recovery of advances was Rs 4.596 million.

The Karachi Mineral Development director allowed royalty at the reduced rate of Rs 18,000 per day to the contractor, instead of the approved contract rate of Rs 23,014 per day. Due to change in the rate of royalty collection rights, the government sustained a loss of Rs 3.749 million and the contractor was given uncalled for financial benefits.

At this point, the PAC chairman again asked that letters be sent to the Sindh governor and chief minister to constitute an inspection team, besides appointing honest officials in this connection. Elaborating further, Unar said that the non-recovery of stamp duty was Rs 1.130 million, while excess payment on house rent allowance was found to be Rs 8,88,509. Moreover, in the office of Sindh Coal Authority director general, records of expenditure of Rs 10.344 million relating to various schemes were not produced for audit scrutiny within the stipulated time. ppi

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp...009_pg12_2