Official says enquiries led to transfer of ACE director

Admin secretaries wanted Ziaullah Toru transferred

PESHAWAR: The director of the Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) has been transferred after the outcome of a number of inquiries launched into the overall performance of the ACE, particularly the one initiated in the museum probe case that had already been investigated by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

An official source sharing the copies of the presentation that was attended by the chief secretary and a number of secretaries wherein the performance and complaints against the ACE were assessed, said the decision to transfer the director ACE was actually taken at the request of the fact-finding committee formed by the Establishment Department that probed the matter of harassment of the officers of the Peshawar Museum.

The source claimed that the transfer of the director ACE had nothing do with the working relations of Chief Minister Pervez Khattak and Chief Secretary Amjad Ali Khan.He said that NAB had been approached on the recommendation of the fact-finding committee to allow the provincial government to initiate Efficiency and Disciplinary (E&D) proceedings against the ex-director ACE.

He said the request of the Establishment Department to initiate probe against the ex-director ACE, who is originally an employee of NAB presently serving in the province on deputation, was sent to the NAB chairman on May 3. However, they have not yet got any intimation in this regard, he added.

The source also referred to the proceedings of the meeting where bitterness among the former director ACE and some administrative secretaries erupted and said the meeting was held to brief the chief secretary and advisor to the chief minister regarding a number of inquiries and performance of the ACE.

According to the documents, besides advisor to the chief minister on Communication and Works (C&W), the secretary Public Health Engineering (PHE) Department, secretary Local Government (LG&RD) and secretary Irrigation were also among the officers present at the meeting.

The presentation shows the meeting took up the report of the joint committee constituted by the chief minister on the performance of the ACE with regard to the inquiries in the Environment Department, Education department, complaint by Kasteer Gul International Ltd, and report of the Archeology Department.

In a lengthy 40-slide presentation, the committee termed the allegations of irregularities in the “Billion Trees Tsunami Afforestation” project baseless and said the project produced outstanding results.

Among other reports, the committee in its presentation reported that the ACE from May 2014 to February 2016 received 4,101 complaints out of which 1931 were converted into enquiries and only 254 were registered. It added that 173 were converted into court cases forming a mere 4.21 percent of the total complaints the ACE had received.

The committee also gave a way forward to the government to improve the performance of the ACE. It asked the government to form multi-departmental committee and initiate a special audit to probe the financial matters of ACE on the basis of which legal and administrative action could be taken against those held responsible for any lapses.

The official source said that an audit into the ACE’s financial affairs had almost been completed and would be submitted to the chief secretary.

It asked for the introduction of the system of provincial, divisional and district committees by suitably amending the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa ACE Rules, 1999 because under these rules the initiation of enquiries, registration of cases and arrest of the accused serving in BPS-19 and above grades is the prerogative of the chief secretary but at the moment the director ACE was doing it.

It proposed that the post of the director ACE should be upgraded to BS-19 or 20 with the nomenclature of director general as is the case in other provinces.

The source confided that after pressure and insistence from a number of administrative secretaries during the briefing and non-action by the chief minister on the summary seeking the transfer of ACE director, the chief secretary was left with no other option but to transfer the director ACE under Supreme Court judgment CRL/89/2011 in which the apex court has held that no non-civil servant can be transferred and appointed by way of deputation to any cadre post which is meant for recruitment through competitive process.