Charsadda TMA Corruption Scandal: Employee Noor Baz Khan issues open challenge to CM regarding proof
Soon after the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister announced a zero-tolerance policy against corruption in the province, a case of alleged large-scale financial irregularities in the Charsadda Town Municipal Administration has come to light.
TMA Charsadda employee Noor Baz Khan has directly challenged the Chief Minister to come to Charsadda, where he will show him concrete evidence of corruption in the institution. While talking to the media, Noor Baz Khan claimed that financial irregularities have been going on systematically in TMA Charsadda for the past several years. According to him, such development projects worth crores of rupees have been shown to be completed on paper, which do not exist on the ground.
Funds were withdrawn in the name of the construction of streets, sewerage lines, and roads. He also said that in violation of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Local Government Act and KPRA Rules, contracts were illegally awarded to preferred contractors and the tender process was not kept transparent.
Noor Baz Khan said that the budget allocated for public welfare, cleanliness, and development was used for personal interests and political influence. He said that he has receipts, bank statements, fake M-boxes, and contract files, and if the Chief Minister visits Charsadda TMA once, he will put the proof in front of him.
These allegations have come to light at a time when the Chief Minister, while holding a press conference in Peshawar last week, had said that those who commit corruption will not be able to escape now, and every government department will be audited. After this statement of the Chief Minister, government employees from different districts of the province have started raising their voices against corruption.
Charsadda TMA has been under public criticism before for its slow progress in cleanliness and development projects, but this is the first time that an employee has come up with such a challenge to show evidence so openly.
Noor Baz Khan has demanded that the Chief Minister himself or a NAB and anti-corruption team should make a surprise visit to Charsadda TMA and conduct a third-party audit of all development projects of the last five years. He said that immediate action should be taken against the responsible officers and contractors, and he will present all the documents to the media and the court.
Till the time of writing, there was no official response from the Town Municipal Officer of TMA Charsadda or the district administration on these allegations. A responsible officer of the TMA office said on condition of anonymity that all records are transparent, and if there is any complaint, it should be taken to a legal forum.
If the Chief Minister’s Secretariat takes notice of Noor Baz Khan’s challenge, the Charsadda TMA case could become a test case for the accountability of local bodies in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
