An inquiry has been launched into the misappropriation of millions of rupees in the construction of shelters and homes for the flood-hit people in Alipur in Muzaffargarh district. The inquiry was ordered by Muzaffargarh's District Co-ordination Officer (DCO) Tahir Khurshid Chaudhry on public complaints.
EDO (Community Development) has been assigned this inquiry and asked to quickly submit his findings so that action could be initiated against NGO called Awaz Foundation CDS. "Local people complained that Awaz Foundation was to construct 2,350 single-room shelters, costing Rs 192.7 million. A similar number of lavatories were to be built at a cost of Rs 42.3 million. The NGO, however, built sub-standard shelters without getting any NOC from PDMA. The Foundation provided toilets in just 1,750 shelters/homes, leaving 600 others without such facility. They also allegedly misappropriated the Rs 10.8 million.
"Similarly," he said, "they had installed 235 hand-pumps at a cost of Rs 45,000 per pump but without any care for their quality and the water itself was unhygienic. It was found to be unfit for human consumption. The NGO got Rs 10.57 million to install these hand-pumps".
USAID and other donor agencies, he said, had urged the government to chalk out a transparent plan to bring aid to genuine and deserving people who "are still shelter-less and starving". Awaz Foundation had signed a memorandum of understanding with the provincial education department for training of teaching staff on August 15, 2008.
However, the memorandum was cancelled by the City District Government, Multan, on September 8, 2011 and banned all of its activities vide letter No6882/G-1. International donors had expressed concern in the past over the mechanism for distribution of funds to NGOs reportedly involved in financial irregularities. The government recently asked local and foreign donor agencies to change their criteria for disbursing funds to avoid massive frauds and misuse of funds.