Financial irregularities found in Women Political School

The irregularities in Women Political Schools (WPS) project phase-III costing $10.23 million to train 52,000 Union Nazims, Naib Nazims and women councillors on 'Gender Sensitisation' have been detected. Sources told Business Recorder here on Tuesday that under WPS per councillor training costs $196.73 (Rs 11, 804).
However, implementation of the political training is comparatively slow and in most of the constituencies the councillors, Nazims and Naib Nazims were not even intimated undergoing the political training.
It is learnt that during October 2004 to September 2007 only 23,148 councillors were trained 2,635 women councillors in NWFP, 14,307 in Punjab, 4,211 in Sindh and 1,995 in Balochistan. The figures show that Balochistan and NWFP were comparatively neglected in the women political training process.
Sources said that only 11,036 Union Nazims were trained under WPS project during this period of which 1,775 are from NWFP, 6,235 from Punjab, 2,005 from Sindh and 1,021 Balochistan.
They disclosed that overall unit cost is $127 (Rs 7, 632) and WPS phase-III will be completed in 2012 with the duration of five years. Sources said that the expenditure of WPS phase-I was $3 million with duration of 3 years adding that 27,000 women councillors were trained.
Furthermore it was learnt that in WPS phase-II, the expenditure was $4.5 million with the duration of 3 years and 23,022 women councillors were provided political training. However, in Multan, NWFP and Balochistan most of the women councillors were neglected by the ministry.
However, sources said that the Ministry has no record or data profile of the number and names of the women councillors in District Resource Centers (DRCs) in the respective constituencies where the MoWD arranged political training for women councillors.
They said that Gender Sensitisation Programme publication 'Political and Legislative Participation of Women in Pakistan' captures the elements of impact and political change processes underway in the country.
There are a lot of political bottlenecks that women have to face striving for political empowerment, they said. Additional modules on health and hygiene were added to the women political schools modules in collaboration with WHP, UNFPA and ILO, they said.
However far-flung areas of Balochistan and NWFP were neglected in the Women Political Schools project, as women councillors were not intimated which remained un-noticed.