The Ministry of Planning, Development and Reforms (MoPD&R) is to submit a position paper in the next meeting of Council of Common Interests (CCI) that is aimed at addressing issue of lack of cooperation from provinces as well as possible misalignment between the federation and the provinces in development projects, official sources told Business Recorder.
In this regard, decision was made at a recent meeting of the federal cabinet when the inquiry report on charge of corruption in Kachhi canal project came under discussion.
The Cabinet was informed that due to inordinate delay and huge cost overrun, the CCI, in its meeting on February 29, 2016 had ordered probe into irregularities and corruption in Kachhi Canal Project, and fixing the responsibility by a high-powered committee. The inquiry committee submitted its report in January 2017 and noted serious irregularities and lapses in planning, design, bidding and execution of the project as causes for cost and time overrun. While considering the inquiry report, the CCI in its meeting on May 2, 2017, directed the Water and Power Division to implement recommendations of the inquiry report in letter and spirit, and referred the case to the cabinet for decision on actions to be taken against those found responsible.
The sources said the then Water and Power Division had requested Planning, Develo-pment & Reform Division and Wapda to take action on the relevant recommendations of the inquiry report. In order to fix responsibilities, Wapda had furnished a possible course of action prepared in consultation with legal counsels. According to Wapda, the inquiry report ascribed collective responsibility of delinquent officers over a long period and added that in the absence of precise determination of loss/damage and corresponding apportionment of responsibility for each accused, it would be difficult to initiate any sort of proceedings. As a result, there was a need to carry out an additional exercise to quantify the damages caused to the public exchequer, and attribution and apportionment of the same vis-à-vis the delinquent officers named in the report.
Keeping in view entire scenario, Water Resources Division proposed: (i) matter may be referred back to the same committee, or a new committee may be constituted to quantify the extent of damages caused to national exchequer and determine the loss/damage, and corresponding apportionment of responsibility against the accused; (ii) depending upon the nature of violation, appropriate measures may be taken by respective ministries/divisions/ departments such as filing of recovery suits, taking actions at departmental, civil or criminal judicial/quasi-judicial forums or as proposed by Chairman Wapda, case may be referred to National Accountability Bureau which has jurisdiction and can proceed against retired/in-service persons as well as other non-government individuals. However, the advice of Law and Justice Division may be obtained in this regard, if deemed appropriate.
In terms of rule 16(1)(k) of the Rules of Business, 1973, approval of the cabinet was solicited for decision of the meeting of the CCI-inquiry into Kachhi Canal related corruption charges.
During the course of discussion, it was mentioned that the project had been initiated in a hurried manner without any feasibility or PC-I, which led to time and cost overrun. It was also pointed out that the Federal Government had initiated a number of projects for irrigation purposes worth billions of rupees. However, the provinces had not set up distribution networks with the result that the full purported benefits of the projects had not been achieved. The Kachhi Canal was supposed to irrigate 713,000 acres of land, but due to lack of distribution network, only 7000 acres were being irrigated at the moment. The need for alignment between the development activities of the federation and the provinces was emphasized.
The cabinet did not endorse option of sending the enquiry report back to the committee for re-examination, as it would cause unnecessary delay. It also did not find appropriate the last option of sending the case to National Accountability Bureau, as according to the Inquiry Report, some accused officers had criminal while others had civil liabilities, and it would not be fair to club them together. However, it endorsed option (b), and constituted a committee to examine the issue. After detailed discussion, the cabinet decided to constitute a committee, with the following composition, to examine the issue in detail, determine the respective civil and criminal liabilities of accused officers and the extent/ magnitude of their liabilities in each category, as well as to propose a mechanism for implementing the recommendations of the inquiry report: (i) Chaudhry Mahmood Bashir Virk- Minister for Law & Justice, as Chairman ;(ii) Syed Javed Ali Shah, Minister for Water Resources- as Member and ;(iii) Zafarullah Khan, Barrister-at-Law who is SA to the Prime Minister on Law, as Member.
The committee was allowed to co-opt relevant Federal Secretaries as members. The committee will submit its recommendations to the cabinet.
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