Three Nadra centres shut down,inquiry ordered against 50 officials

Karachi
Three facilitation centres of the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) situated in Ayesha Manzil, New Karachi and Baldia areas were shut down on Monday when its chairman Usman Yousuf Mobin showed up for a surprise inspection visit after complaints of gross irregularities and corruption.
According to the Nadra spokesperson, the chairman visited the centres to see for himself the problems being faced by citizens since thousands of complaints had been pouring about the irregularities in the system of the database authority.
On the occasion, the Nadra chairman also ordered inquiries against 50 officials working at the three centres which were closed on his directives on Monday.
The Nadra spokesperson claimed that the chairman’s visit was not scheduled at all and even the staff did not recognise the top Nadra official when he reached the centres.
“At one of the centres the chairman was even stopped by the security guard,” he said. “It was only when he was told that it was the Nadra chairman that the guard relented and let him in.”
The spokesperson said the Nadra chairman took notice of the many irregularities at the facilitation centres and also decided to lessen their number in the city since the performance of a total of 50 facilitation centres in Karachi is very dismal.
In this regard, he said, the database authority has planned to reduce the number of facilitation centres in the city.
However, the remaining centres will be spacious and would be equipped to accommodate a large number of people and deal with their concerns.
The spokesperson said this would be done within the next three months. It has also been decided that Nadra will engage university students to help people acquire their Computerised National Identity Cards (CNIC) in a transparent manner.
A day earlier, the database authority decided to revamp its standard operating procedure so that foreigners visiting its office for acquiring a computerised national identity card could be reported to the FIA, Special Branch and other agencies.
In a recent meeting of senior officials of the FIA, the Special Branch, Nadra and the National Alien Registration Authority in Karachi, it was decided to prepare a comprehensive strategy to stop the issuance of CNICs to Bengalis, Afghans and other foreigners. The participants of the meeting agreed to cooperate with each other and share information. It was pointed out that the records of the Special Branch needed to be computerised and equipped with a biometric system so that information about a foreigner could be retrieved immediately. A senior official said the interior ministry matter had referred the matter of 5,702 foreigners holding both NARA and CNIC cards to the FIA.
The meeting observed that corrupt Nadra officers working with criminals were issuing CNICs to immigrants of B Category countries and when a genuine Pakistani visited a Nadra office for a CNIC, they were required to submit multiple documents and answer several queries. A foreigner can easily obtain a CNIC in comparison with a Pakistani.
In multiple cases, the family tree of an alien was found missing as there was no record of a father, mother and other family members. The official said during the meeting, the case of a foreigner named Siddique Bengali was also discussed. He was unlawfully issued a CNIC by registering him with a family of a village in Tando Mohammad Khan. The elder of that family named Juma Khan told investigators that he did not know any Siddique Bengali. Around 570 confirmed aliens have also obtained Pakistani passports. The official said it was decided that in the cases of the Nadra employees nominated in four FIRs for processing CNICs of foreigners, the user log of the Nadra Data. Besides, the need for the provision of the user log of all 195 FTRC application-based CNICs was also stressed.