Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Chief Justice of Pakistan Saqib Nisar on Wednesday left for Balakot to review rehabilitation work underway since the 2005 earthquake shattered the region.

He undertook the visit after he was informed during a suo motu hearing about alleged embezzlement of millions of rupees of financial assistance extended by the international community for rehabilitation of earthquake survivors.

During the hearing in Supreme Court on Wednesday, an official of the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA) told the court that the organisation was facing difficulty securing possession of land. “If we get the possession, then the project will be completed in two years,” the official said.

The CJP asked the official what the earthquake victims would do during that two year period. “Will the poor people stay under the sky for two years,” he asked.

The top judge remarked that the former finance minister should appear before the court and share details of all the expenditures.

While referring to finance secretary Arif Ahmed Khan, the CJP asked, “What happened to Balakot?” Khan responded that the funds for development programmes were released on yearly basis.

CJ Nisar then asked him about funds received in the form of foreign aid. Khan shared that Pakistan received USD2.89 billion as foreign aid, adding that he didn’t have records for funds received within the country.

On this, the ERRA represent said that the government released funds worth Rs1.9 billion, while donors released Rs100 billion funds. He also shared that ERRA completed 10,563 projects, adding that Rs5.3 billion was spent in development projects since 2006. “We need additional Rs37 billion for the projects,” he said.

The CJP remarked: “Is Rs5 billion a small amount?” adding that ERRA’s salary bill had been inflated because of needless hiring.

The CJP then asked how long did it take to travel to Mansehra. When the ERRA official told him that it was at least four-hours drive, he announced that he would travel to Balakot to personally review the situation.

On March 19, the CJP had taken suo motu notice of alleged embezzlement of over $5 billion financial assistance extended by the international community for rehabilitation of the survivors of the devastating earthquake of 2005.

Over 600,000 families were affected in the earthquake with an estimated 87,000 people killed and as many severely injured. About 600,000 houses, 6,000 schools and 800 health facilities were affected.

Data until January 2017, collected by the ERRA shows that nearly half of the total 5,723 schools are yet to be rebuilt. Earlier, the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) government had announced reconstruction of 760 schools in the province. Initially, a total of Rs3.7 billion were allocated – later increased to Rs8 billion in the 2014-15 budget.

The total expenditure reported until 2016-17 against the allocated budget line was Rs765.31 million – implying that in three years, the provincial government had used less than 10 per cent of the total funds worth Rs8 billion.

Published in Daily Times, April 26^th 2018.