Tawana Pakistan Project

 

This sub-committee of Senate Standing Committee on Social Welfare and Special Education was constituted to probe the financial embezzlement and bungling committed by the officials involved in the execution of “Tawana Pakistan Project (TPP)”

 

TPP was aimed at mobilization of girls of poor districts of the country towards schools through offering free meals and food supplements. The objectives were supreme and the cause was indeed nobel and much desired. While giving approval to the project, Government had the aim to roll it over to other areas of the country.

 

The commitment of the Government (2002-07), with the project through approval of RS. 3.6 billion was therefore quite obvious. What happened afterwards will however, remain a history. A callous and repeatedly irresponsible attitude of most of the officials and departments involved directly and indirectly with this project including the Minister of that time, Secretaries (with exceptions) and National Project Directors (NPD) was shocking and unbelievable. The waste of public money/tax payers money, violation of relevant rules, regulations and set norms and procedures at a senior levels speaks of their remorse towards law and the poor people of this country.

 

A careless and non serious approach of the National Steering Committee (NSC) which could meet only once during the first phase of the project (2002-2005), speaks of low priority of both central and provincial governments on the project. This also signals a lack of ownership of the stakeholders, both at Federal and Provincial level. The project appears to be marketed poorly due to which it failed to raise the awareness and generate sufficient interest of local governments as well.

 

The planning commission (PC) which is responsible to approval PC-I and undertake c a quarterly evaluation of projects funded from the PSDP, failed to honor its duties. Rather than intervening during the currency of project when lots of apprehensions were being raised by various quarters, PC rather preferred giving blatant powers to the NPD to make the expenditure. At that time the project had already been suspended on account of serious allegations of bungling, poor execution, delivery and its questionable structure.

 

The sub-committee conducted hearings on     ,        ,        ,, questioned the top officials involved directly or indirectly in this project including the former Minister of Social Welfare and Special Education(SW&SE). The sub-committee perused the reports of Auditor General and Prime Minister’s Inspection Commission and detailed representations on the project. The detailed responses of the officials of the M/O SW&SE and the Planning Commission on the questionnaire provided by the sub-committee were also perused. The sub-committee, after undertaking detailed and lengthy deliberations has observed the following;

 

 

  1. Poor Institutional Systems in place, both at the ministry and planning commission level which lacked the structure to closely monitor, assess and evaluate the expenditure and performance of the project. Or the systems failed to signal the wrongdoings at such a high scale at a proper time. The higher authorities were found reacting too slowly and too little.

 

  1. No remorse was observed across the board, for the relevant rules, regulations and law on hiring of staff, selection of officers, purchases and bidding processes etc. Blatant interference from the Minister to have favors on various accounts through nepotism and graft, resulting into poor management of such an important project.

 

  1. Siphoning the project money to the refurbishment of Ministry’s offices, Minister’s residence, fictitious billings on car maintenance, bogus TA/DA’S, inflated telephone bills, unauthorized medical treatment, refurbishment of rented office accommodation at exhibitory high prices.

 

  1. Sudden change of menu without undertaking pre-project test and evaluation from the cooked meals to delivery of packed milk and biscuits and that too expired and not fit for human consumption. This is despite knowing the logistics nightmare in the remote areas of the country.

 

  1. Large scale expenditure on publicity and promotion of the project beyond the budgetary layouts and without any justifications remains highly distressful. Relevant procurement rules were violated and even nobody knows where those expensive bill boards/publicity materials could be found. Relevant authorities are mum on these clandestine violations.

 

  1. Serious concerns on the capacity and ability to deliver on the part of NPD and his team, concerned Principal Accounting Officers (PAO) of M/O SW&SE and even those of Planning Commission were expressed by this sub-committee. Apparently there is no provision in the present system for the training and skill development of project directors and other key officials involved in the execution of such projects

 

  1. It appears that the Planning Commission had taken a back seat as no proactive role was visibly played by it in this project to guide, assist, assess, monitor and evaluate the project to steer it on the course, originally envisaged with such a large layout of tax payers’ money.

 

  1. The role of Secretaries/ PAO`s of M/O SW&SE with few exceptions, was far below than what is desired from the Government and as required under the relevant rules, regulations and law.No proper controls were put in place for early warning of wrong doings. The PPRA rules were repeatedly violated by NPD while making purchases and awarding tenders, no action was ever initiated by the PAO`s.

 

  1. Sub-committee appreciates the timely audits conducted by the Auditor General’s office and the Prime Ministers Inspection Team and revealing eye opening embezzlement of such a scale. The relevant Ministry has yet to constitute a DAC to discuss the report.  No wonder, why there is such poor tax compliance in Pakistan, mainly due to distrust of tax payers on the executing agencies and the callousness of some top level officials towards Tax payers money.

 

  1. Role of Planning Commission in this project remains below standard, less professional and at times worrying. This raises some questions as to why projects after the approval are left at the Mercy of executing ministries, corrupt Project Directors and their cronies and are not truly assisted and consistently evaluated, assessed, audited, guided and supported professionally. After all this is public money and the beneficiaries are non else than own countrymen.   PC also appears to suffer from some inherent lack of capacity and desired will to play an active role in executing the schemes involving huge sums of tax payer’s money.

 

The Sub-Committee also likes to express its concerns, worries and apprehensions that of a total of 551 projects approved by the Planning Commission during period April 2002 to March 2006, with a cost of Rs 106.50 Billion, few of them would be meeting the same fate as of TPP. Due diligence by the PC and the relevant ministries is needed along with putting in place the systems which could trigger the signals of wrongdoings immediately.

 

Based on above observations, opinions and inputs which the Sub-Committee received during the course of proceedings, the following is recommended for an immediate action. The Sub-Committee would be keen in knowing the action initiated on these recommendations by the concerned agencies and departments on a regular basis.

 

Recommendations

 

1.      In view of large scale financial irregularities on various accounts, the matter may be referred to the Federal Investigating Agency (FIA) to initiate criminal proceedings against the NPD Mr Irfanullah Khan. He has been found as the main person responsible to damage the project through committing irregularities, misappropriation, financial bungling and fraud thereby causing colossal loss to the exchequer and damaging the credibility of Government before the public.

 

2.      M/o SW&SE and FIA may undertake immediate and stern action to recover the embezzled public money which was spent on bogus purchases through fictitious bills and by violating the rules, regulations, procedures and law. The advance payments made to the suppliers of various items and the advances extended to the officers/officials working in the project may also be recovered without further waste of time.

 

3.      The Auditor General’s office may conduct detailed and an urgent audit of the first phase of project i.e. for the period of 2002-2005. DAC may be convened at the earliest to initiate action on the AG`s report which is already with M/o SW&SE. The Sub-Committee may be informed on the progress accordingly.

 

4.      The official conduct of relevant Secretaries/PAO`s who failed to notice massive irregularities, kept their eyes closed, failed to initiate action or intervene timely in the wrongdoings, may be thoroughly investigated. The role of the Minister of that time Mrs. Zubeda Jalal needs to be investigated without which the objectives of the whole exercise will remain unmet.

 

5.      All those factors may be surfaced which prevented the Planning Commission to raise fingers and remaining a silent spectator during the currency of this project. This needs to be examined as to why the wrong doings were not pointed out, corrected and re-balanced during the mandatory quarterly reviews.

6.      The matter of allowing release of funds by Planning Commission when the implementation of project was suspended needs deeper investigation to unearth the factors behind such a casual approach towards public money.

 

7.      Planning commission to re-visit and have a re-look on its manual for the projects and may take a leadership role and challenge to the law full execution and expenditure. Committees of neutral persons from outside the government sector may also be encouraged to oversea the expenditure, implementation, service and delivery of such projects.

 

8.      The Secretaries/PAO`s of relevant ministries may be held responsible in case of any misappropriation and wrongdoings are detected in the projects of their ministries. Ministers may be sensitized on this issue and the   Secretaries/PAO’s may be encouraged to stand by the truth and merit.

 

 

9.      The Project Directors and Secretaries/PAO’s need extensive capacity building and skill development to enable them to deliver qualitatively and timely and to spend public money judiciously and honestly.

 

10.  The Project Directors qualification does mater but the relevant experience, integrity profile, selection through open and transparent process and past referrals on executing similar projects rather matter more which may therefore be given due preference. The Planning Commission may evolve new instructions, procedures and processes to make such things happen.