NWFP Chief Secretary Ejaz Ahmad Qureshi has taken serious note of the rise in incidents of official vehicles being stolen and directed the quarter concerned to take effective steps in order to check this phenomenon.
In a letter issued there on Tuesday and addressed to all administrative heads, DG Audit NWFP, all heads of attached departments and all DCOs in NWFP, Chief Secretary said " there has been a rise in incidents of official vehicles being stolen, particularly in the evenings when being driven by officers themselves from shopping areas, in contravention to the NWFP Government Staff Vehicles (Use and Maintenance) Rules, 1997. Primary reason for this apathy of government functionaries to vehicles getting stolen is the lack of fear of retribution. Inquiries into loss of government property due to such incidents take a long time to be finalised, Inquiry Officers appointed are from the same department and usually junior, resulting in inquiries not judicious.
The police authorities also do not take enough interest to trace out stolen official vehicles and the audit authorities do not usually verify the requirement of law for initiation and finalisation of such inquiries have been adhered to in each case by the government". Chief Secretary added that keeping in view the rise in the incidents, the existing procedures are reinforced for following strict parameters to check this phenomenon.
He also suggested certain measures to overcome this problem which are; in all such cases, FIR should be registered with the police and incident reported to the government, within the minimum possible time, but not more than twenty four hours of the incident, the process of initiating and finalising of inquiries should be completed and recommendations submitted within thirty days of report of the incident to the government, Inquiry Officers should invariably be appointed by the Establishment Department after approval of the Chief Secretary, in the conduct of inquiry, the Inquiry Officers should give due consideration to vehicles being stolen after duty hours, in absence of drivers and from public places, recommendation for recovery of loss to government should be actualised within one month of approval, the police authorities should maintain separate data of stolen official vehicles and supplement to tracing out and recovering private vehicles, assign particular attention to government vehicles and the audit authorities should strictly ensure that in all such cases the government departments have properly and timely followed all rules and regulations, conducted inquiries and made recoveries for loss to government property; if any. He directed for strict compliance by all provincial and district government departments, police and audit authorities, attached departments and autonomous / semiautonomous bodies of the provincial government forthwith.
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