PESHAWAR: To curb corruption and mismanagement in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the National Accountability Bureau chairman has approved recommendations of the prevention committee to reform the provincial public health engineering, water and sanitation, irrigation and the local government departments.
NAB Peshawar chapter Spokesman Saadullah Khan informed Customs Today that recommendations will now be sent to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister for implementation. NAB Chairman Qamar Zaman Chaudhry had constituted a Prevention Committee under Section 33-C of the National Accountability Ordinance 1999.
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The committee comprised of representatives from different departments and stakeholders with the Director-general of NAB, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, as its chairman.
The mandate of the prevention committee was to educate and advise public authorities, holders of public offices on measures to combat corruption and corrupt practices, examine the laws in force and also rules and regulations, code of conduct relating to PHE, W&S, irrigation and local government and rural development department in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The first area in which the prevention committee gave its recommendations was about assets declaration and analysis.
The committee recommended that all administrative secretaries issue a certificate at the end of the financial year that officers and officials have declared their assets. The second area was about Code of Conduct.
It recommended that the chief secretary issues conduct of employees of departments through a sub-committee comprising secretaries of establishment, law and concerned secretary on quarterly basis.
The committee said the charter of duties and responsibilities in the shape of Pakhtunkhwa Code is being formulated and the process should be expedited for early notification of the updated code.
It also suggested that all information relevant to the department concerned be uploaded on the department`s websites in line with the Right to Information Act, 2014 on regular basis.
About grievance redressal system, the committee said permanent computerized online complaints lodging system should be established in each department.
It added that a coordination unit comprising in charge of the Chief Minister`s Complaint Cell and an additional director of NAB KP complaint cell should be established for mutual assistance and sharing important complaints involving criminal material and monthly review meetings to be held in each department to analyze the disposal of complaints.
Regarding quality control assurance in projects, the prevention committee recommended that laboratories for basic material tests at divisional level had already been established in the C&W department and similar arrangements could be undertaken by the irrigation department and water quality laboratories should be established in public health engineering department.
