Daily Times

Islamabad: Massive irregularities have been reported in a schools renovation project in South Waziristan tribal district under the FATA Transition and Recovery Programme (FTRP), funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Documents available with Daily Times show that at a recent meeting to review project’s progress, the monitoring team of the district administration and community elders complained that pre-qualified contractors engaged by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) had subcontracted renovation work multiple times to embezzle money. Resultantly, a fraction of the Rs2.2 million allocated per school was actually spent on renovation work carried out using substandard material, the meeting was told.

“At least 49 schools were renovated in South Waziristan but all of them have deficiencies, and the quality of work is very poor,” Malik Dil Nawaz Wazir, the additional deputy commissioner (ADC) of the district, told the UNDP engineer in the meeting.

Representatives of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), South Waziristan Agency Education Office, and Fata Directorate of Education were also present at the meeting held last month.

In the meeting, the ADC complained that the project was carried out without consultation with his office, and directed that all work should immediately be stopped in 40 schools until further orders. The next meeting to review the condition of schools in presence of technical staff from the UNDP is scheduled for this week.

The Fata education deputy director told the meeting that during a presentation to the Fata social sector secretary last month, the officials of UNDP didn’t share any information about grey areas in the FTRP.

The $27 million FTRP was launched in 2015 to support the Fata Secretariat in implemention of the Sustainable Return and Rehabilitation Strategy (SRRS) for return of displaced tribal families.

According to details on the UNDP website, the SRRS was developed to ensure that when they return home, tribal families displaced by war and militancy could rebuild their lives in an enabling environment, characterised by rehabilitated infrastructure, access to services, good governance and re-established law and order.

The donors for the FTRP are the government of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, the government of Japan, the European Union (EU), alongside the USAID.

Explaining the dismal condition of a school in his area to Daily Times, a tribal elder from South Waziristan who wished to go unnamed said that no more than a couple of hundred thousands were used by the sub-contractor for renovation of Government Girls Primary School (GGPS) Asad Khan Kot Raghzay in Sararogha tehsil.

He said the sub-contractor had used low quality material, which will harm efforts for enrollment in the school.

Awais Khan, who owns the land where Government Primary School Maisara has been built in Tiarza tehsil, also said that no more than a hundred thousand rupees were used by the sub-contractor in renovation works. He held that the remaining money had been pocketed by multiple parties who got the contract and then passed it on.

He claimed that the contract was subcontracted four times, and said that the firm that eventually got it only whitewashed the roof, repaired the floor and walls, and constructed four-inch boundary walls.

“One side of the gate’s pillar dashed to the ground just a day after the contractor left,” he says.

A former Senator from the tribal region, Saleh Shah, said that substandard material was used in almost all projects undertaken by the UNDP in South Waziristan.

“I’m really stunned that there has been no inquiry into the massive corruption in UNDP projects,” he remarked.

He alleged that the local administration has embezzled funds in connivance with officials of the UNDP. “I am ready to stand trial if my claim proves wrong,” Shah said.

Repeated attempts were made to get a comment from the UNDP, but its officials neither returned phone calls nor responded to text messages.

Published in Daily Times, September 18^th 2018.