Daily Times

PESHAWAR: An extensive survey for completely and partially damaged houses has been underway in parts of Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), but the Phase-IV of the survey had to be cancelled after an inquiry found widespread irregularities in data for 300 villages of South Waziristan region, the commissioner office in D. I. Khan stated.

According to an order by Commissioner D. I. Khan Abdul Ghafoor Baig, the survey carried out under Phase-IV, launched in September 2017, “is seriously compromised and full of anomalies.”

“The whole survey process seems to have been rendered doubtful and left with no option but to cancel it and to order a fresh survey of Phase-IV,” the order stated.

The commissioner’s office stated that following numerous complaints by the general public, tribal elders and the political administration of South Waziristan, an inquiry was conducted through a committee to check anomalies, which unearthed major irregularities in the survey.

“Many survey forms have been attested against dead persons, children and non-eligible people not belonging to the villages shown in the survey,” an official at the commissioner office stated.

A source privy to the development said that an investigation has been launched against four Political Naib Tehsildars (PNTs) for their alleged involvement in corruption in funds allocated for the newly-repatriated families to build their shattered houses.

According to the established criteria, each family gets Rs. 400,000 and Rs. 160,000 for fully and partially damaged houses, respectively.

Even an MNA from South Waziristan, Maulana Jamaluddin, has misreported figures in the survey. He has shown 2,100 houses when there are just 30 houses in his hometown in the region.

In addition, reports said that a survey has been carried out in the name of a mosque instead of houses on behalf of MNA Maulana Jamaluddin.

Earlier, Sayed Umar, coordinator of FATA Disaster Management Authority (FDMA) in South Waziristan Agency, told Daily Times in an interview that his organisation enlisted 70,000 Temporary Displaced Persons (TDPs) families and now 100 percent repatriation of families have been completed to all the 386 villages.

The record disclosed that the initial demand for Citizen Losses Compensation Program (CLCP) of TDPs was Rs.80 billion, but recently FATA Secretariat again demanded Rs15 billion.

According to details shared by the political administration of South Waziristan, so far a survey of 47,380 households has been conducted in the area. A total of 40,868 houses have been declared fully damaged and another 8,532 partially damaged. The details show that Rs. 12,778.86 million have been distributed among the families against their claims.

“Members of survey teams, engineers and officers in uniform also failed to check malpractices, rather they became part of it as survey forms have been signed by them. They deserved to be proceeded under relevant rules by the authority concerned,” said the commissioner office in D. I. Khan.

Meanwhile, Malik Fazlur Rehman, a tribal elder from South Waziristan, expressed serious reservations over the D. I. Khan commissioner’s move to cancel the survey, saying that the commissioner should have put in place proper criteria before launching the survey to avoid any corruption.

“The displaced families faced unprecedented problems to come to South Waziristan all along from Karachi, Quetta, Peshawar and other parts of the country to get compensation money but cancellation of the survey at the point is condemnable,” he added.

He said that the commissioner should withdraw his order otherwise they would stage a protest against his decision.

When approached for comments, former Senator Saleh Shah said that hectic public meetings and jirgas were underway in South Waziristan following cancellation of the survey.

He said that it was a matter of concern that there was no accountability in FATA to check unprecedented corruption in various projects. “The cancellation of the survey inflicted heavy losses on national exchequer on one hand while on the other poor tribal people spent thousands of rupees to get their damaged houses registered,” he added.

“We demand the authorities to conduct a thorough probe into the corruption done in the Phase-IV of the survey and give exemplary punishment to the wrongdoers,” Shah remarked.

Published in Daily Times, May 12^th 2018.