KARACHI – Expressing displeasure over the Population Department secretary’s statement that show-cause notices were issued to 13 officers suspected of embezzling Rs 4.587 million from the department funds, the Sindh Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee on Tuesday recommended that the provincial government should at least suspend these officers. The financial irregularities were noticed during the audit of Population Department accounts for the year 2007-8.
It was observed that District Population Officers posted in 13 districts, including Karachi, Umerkot, Mirpurkhas, Jamshoro, Nawabshah, Sanghar among others, had released the money through fake bills. These findings were placed before the PAC meeting, presided over by its Chairman Jam Tamachi Unnar, at the Sindh Assembly building’s Committee Room, where the audit report of the Population Department’s accounts of years 2006-07, 2007-08 and 2008-09 were discussed.
At the meeting, Population Department Secretary Rizwan Memon informed that the department had issued show-cause notices to the officers responsible for releasing the amount through fake bills. However, the PAC members expressed dissatisfaction over the action and recommended that their services should be suspended at least. The PAC chairman also issued an order to the Sindh Assembly Secretary Hadi Bux Buriro for writing a letter to the Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah in this regard.
The committee members also took serious notice of a complaint by the Population Department secretary that the campaign for creating awareness among the people on family planning has been suspended due to shortage of funds. The secretary had said that the department was unable to continue the awareness campaign for a long time due to lack of financial resources and is hardly able to provide the salaries of its staff from the available budget.
Expressing his concern over the issue, the PAC chairman – who, during the last Sindh Assembly’s session, had even suggested that the Sindh government declares this year ‘child-free’ – directed that another letter should be send to the chief minister that the department should have funds available for continuing its awareness campaign as this was not only its responsibility, but also necessary to control the rapidly increasing population of the province.
Unnar said the Population Department was also facing financial constraints due to decreasing projects by the international donor agencies on account of family planning. In this situation, he added, the government should provide funds to the department so that it could continue awareness campaign.
