Daily Times

KARACHI: Karachi Mayor Waseem Akhtar has directed an inquiry into alleged tampering in payroll of around 13,383 employees of Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC). In this regard, Payroll Director Zafar Iqbal had been made official on special duty (OSD) as he was allegedly involved in the scam, officials of KMC have revealed.

A committee was constituted by Karachi Mayor Waseem Akhtar vide letter Sr Dir (HRM)/KMC/2017/3497 November 24, 2017 signed by KMC HRM Senior Director Jamil Farooqi. The committee comprising of eight officials from different departments would probe on all relevant information in the computer systems and possible changes in basic data fields of KMC payroll in the last six months.

The alleged malpractice done in the payroll included changes in basic fields of employees’ date i.e. name of employee, father’s/, spouse’s name, National Identity Card, designation, date of birth, date of appointment, and bank account information.

It was reported that Zafar Iqbal also changed his date of birth and salary increment.

Changes were also made in salary structures and other details of employees transferred from Karachi Development Authority to KMC.

KMC officials of audit, finance & accounts and HRM were also accused of involvement in the malpractice. Ghost employees were also included in the change of payroll, officials claimed.

The mayor was of the opinion that wrongdoing in payroll had inflicted financial loss of millions, besides ruining the system of the entity.

Under the terms of reference, KMC will provide details to the committee of such modifications during the period of last six months by using ‘audit trail system’ toll from main computer system.

The committee will decide to allow entrance, deletion, and modification in the employees’ data after a thorough scrutiny of such cases and float recommendations to computer section of KMC finance and accounts department to implement the modifications decided, scrutinised by the committee only.

The supplementary bill will also be placed before the committee.

Since the entire data of KMC employees had already been submitted to Sindh High Court and Sindh Local Government Department, all security measures would be considered before any changing or modification in data, it was said.

This was revealed after gathering details on directives of Supreme Court to determine OPS/absorbed, cadre or non cadre and out-of-turn promotions in various departments.

It was reported that Agha Durrani, a computer system official, had not been working for the last six months on grounds that he would not work until complete details of KDA transferred employees in KMC were not provided.

It was reported that he was also made OSD; whereas Tahir Jamil of KMC had been in jail on graft charges.

It was reported that around Rs 600 million annually had been siphoned through release of ghost employees’ salaries without any cheques.

Local Government Secretary Ramzan Awan informed the court about presence of ghost employees in KMC. Probes had been undertaken to unearth ghost employees for the last five years but to no avail.

Published in Daily Times, November 27^th 2017.