NAB strangely closed KP’s ‘ghost school’ inquiry while confirming it

ISLAMABAD: The NAB has closed its inquiry into KP’s ghost schools and ghost students scam, which interestingly was not only uncovered by the provincial department concerned itself but was also endorsed and referred to the Bureau by the Provincial Inspection Team (PIT) of the KP chief minister. Intriguingly, the NAB in its recent letter addressed to the provincial Chief Secretary while admitting that the programme launched for the out of school children had serious issues but yet it conveyed to the KP government its decision to close the inquiry. The NAB instead asked the Chief Secretary to proceed on the matter.

In a serious charge-sheet against the PTI government in KP, the Provincial Inspection Team (PIT) had endorsed the report on Elementary and Secondary Education Foundation (ESEF) on ghost schools and ghost students in the province, revealing that not only actual number of out of school children (OOSC) was far less than what was claimed, but 74 percent of the amount spent was embezzled.

The PIT inquiry report had termed the provincial government’s project for enrolment of out of school children “The story of failure”. It disclosed that this scandalous project had even affected normal government schools from where many students had left to join these private schools to get the benefits of free uniform and books. The project, the report said, also hurt the government’s policy regarding increase of enrolment in government schools.

The PIT inquiry report, which was submitted to the chief minister during the second half of last year, had recommended that not only the detected embezzled amount of Rs19.4 million from just 24 Iqra Farogh-e-Taleem Voucher Scheme (IFTVS) schools in Mansehra be recovered, but the matter be referred to NAB to inquire into the working of these schools in all districts of the provinces to “ensure that public money was not pocketed”.

However, the NAB, which is targeting the opposition leaders and has now even arrested Jang Group’s Editor-in-Chief in a sham case, in the ghost school case has conveyed to the PTI government that the inquiry is closed in compliance with the decision of the “competent authority”. The NAB is already accused by the opposition parties and the media of turning blind eye to the corruption cases of the PTI leaders.

The NAB letter, available with The News, presents a strange contradiction as it announces the closure of the inquiry but at the same time noted scandalous wrongs in the Iqra Voucher Scheme of the KP government.

According to the letter, “During the course of inquiry, the following were observed regarding execution of Iqra Voucher Scheme of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government:-

a. During the ground check, the number of voucher students enrolled were found much less than the number of voucher students claimed by the private schools in district Mansehra.

b. Condition of some of the schools was unsatisfactory regarding observance of EEF guidelines, quality of building, enrolled students’ strength, basic facilities provided to the students etc. Extraordinary relaxation was given in the revised IFTVS proposal, wherein even unregistered newly set up schools were allowed to operate under the said scheme.

c. There was no proper mechanism for quarterly checking of physical presence of the voucher students in the private schools.

d. There is no tool of proper mechanism for quarterly checking the enrollment of voucher students i.e. Form-B, Biometric and Parent CNIC. Some specific/authentic mechanism for identification of the voucher students is required.

e. Data collected by the daily wagers during survey seems inconsistent regarding verification of the enrolled students.

f. Other procedure lapses were observed i.e. lack of regular monitoring by EEF during survey and thereafter lack of EEF Monitoring Staff in the district, lack of supervision by the EEF.”

After admitting the above mentioned wrongs in the project, the NAB conveyed its decision of closing the inquiry.

Interestingly, the PIT report which was shared with the NAB had said about the level of corruption and fraud that although the Provincial Bureau of Statistics (BOS) had identified 23,071 out of school children for their enrolment in district Mansehra, as per 100 percent validation by DPO (district programme officer) only 4,183 students were physically available. The PIT also found huge variation in the data.

The PIT inquiry report of the KP government’s own inspection team had found that an amount of Rs2.6 million was paid to 24 schools (inquired by PIT) in Mansehra on account of free education, books and uniforms to the out of school children after enrolling them in their schools under IFTVS project during the academic year 2017-18. However, upon physical verification by the PIT team, it was found that the actual number of out of school children was far less, which resulted in embezzlement of Rs1.9 million (out of total Rs2.6 million) which is 74 percent of the paid amount to these 24 IFTVS schools.

Total project cost of the IFTVS for 25 districts of KP is Rs6.9 billion. Total children enrolled up to 2017 in six districts were 41,000 and target for children to be enrolled in 2018 was 84,000 in all 25 districts. The PIT inquiry report termed the project “The story of failure” and said, “The voucher scheme project was initially approved in the year 2014 with limited scope to be implemented in five union councils of Peshawar. The scope of the project through several revisions by BOD was enhanced to the whole province with total cost of about Rs6.9b.”