The Chief of Water, Planning Commission, has identified financial irregularities of Rs 84.771 million in the project 'Water Conservation and Productivity Enhancement through High Efficiency Irrigation Systems' (HEIS), and requested the Executive Committee of National Economic Council (Ecnec), scheduled to meet on Thursday, to fix responsibility against officials reportedly involved in squandering the tax payers' money.
In a meeting of the Central Development Working Party (CDWP) held on November 3, 2010, Chief Water stated that Operation and Maintenance (O&M) was the responsibility of beneficiaries but an amount of Rs 84.771 million had been spent on operation and maintenance, while the project was still in the implementation stage.
"It is not justifiable and therefore, inquiry may be conducted and responsibility should be fixed against the officials who have squandered the tax payers' money in irrational and unbearable way," he said. According to documents available with Business Recorder, Chief (Water) introduced the salient features of the project and said that the original PC-I of the project was approved by Ecnec in its meeting on September 19, 2007 at a cost of Rs 18.00 billion. He further stated that due to substandard performance, the President's Secretariat/PM Secretariat issued the directive on June 8, 2009 to transfer the project from Federal Water Management Cell (FWMC) to Pakistan Agriculture Research Council (PARC).
Further, he intimated that the sponsoring agency/the PARC had submitted a revised PC-I wherein the administrative arrangements, and implementation strategy had been changed and the project would be implemented by PARC. The design, supervision, monitoring, quality control, research and technical services would be the responsibility of PARC instead of consultants. He stated that several meetings have been arranged to discuss these issues in detail wherein the provinces showed their concerns about implementation of the project by PARC.
Finance Ministry representative observed that during the meeting that a huge share had been given to the provinces under National Finance Commission (NFC) Award. "Therefore, major share of the cost should be borne by provinces and only minor share should be borne by federal government as the subject of agriculture is a provincial subject under the Eighteenth Amendment," he added.
Documents show that the President's Secretariat/Prime Minister Secretariat issued directives on June 8, 2009 for transferring the project from Federal Water Management Cell (FWMC) to PARC, which upset the provinces. The representative of the government of Sindh expressed reservations regarding implementation of the project through PARC and said that after the promulgation of the 18th Amendment, implementation/ management of the agriculture was purely provincial matter.
"Therefore, the project must be completely executed by provinces whereas PARC stands for Pakistan Agriculture Research Council, therefore, PARC has nothing to do with implementation as it is a research organisation," he said, adding that project was not research project; hence the project could not fall within domain/mandate of PARC. The CDWP recommended the project for submission to Ecnec, requesting approval of the project, keeping in view provincial reservations.
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