Finance Dept most corrupt in Punjab: DG ACE

LAHORE: Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) Punjab Director General Brig (retd) Muzzaffar Ali Ranjha has said that out of over 40 government departments, Punjab Finance Department is the most corrupt department in the province.

Addressing a press conference at his office on Friday, the DG said that after all the visits to various regions of ACE and briefings, he reached the conclusion that Punjab Finance Department was the most corrupt departments of the province, whereas, Punjab Land Record and Excise & Taxation departments are at the second and third most corrupt provincial departments, respectively.

“What I observed after taking over the charge as DG last year, majority of the poor people, including the widows of government servants, are suffering at the hands of finance officials. People have to give a certain percentage to the finance department officials for clearance of their dues”, the DG claimed, adding that the officials are in the habit of not clearing cheques/dues until they get their certain share."

The DG said that investigation into Saaf Pani Project was underway and soon main accused, including Waseem Ajmal, Shabnam, Nasir Badar, Col (retd) Maqbool, would be arrested soon after their interim bails were dismissed by the learned court.

Accompanied by RD & T Director Naveed Shahzad Mirza and Deputy Director Sadia Ijaz, Muzzaffar said Punjab could have suffered a huge financial loss if Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif had not taken notice of the alleged wrongdoings into the affairs of the Saaf Pani Project. “We have put all the main accused on the Exist Control List (ECL) and soon they would be held”, he added.

Naveed Shahzad said that they had received over 28, 900 complaints about various government department officials in 2017 and 28, 500 of them had been disposed of. He said over 14,000 inquiries had been decided since the incumbent DG took over a year back. Naveed added that over 1,600 challans had been submitted in accountability courts across the province.

“We have conducted over 400 raids and arrested over 2,300 accused since the last year”, the ACE director said, adding that over 5,000 kanal precious land was confiscated in the last one year. Lauding the progress of respective courts, he said 24 accused had been convicted in the last one month alone. Naveed said that around Rs 1.5 billion had been recovered from the corrupt elements during the last one year.

Responding to various queries, the ACE DG said that he would visit all the regions of ACE to monitor performance of the staff and to interact directly with the public to address their issues. "I’m determined to perform up to the expectation of the government as well as of the people," he said. He was of the view that Punjab had over Rs 2000 billion annual budget, and countering corruption was a challenging task. "We are prepared to deliver and defeat the corrupt elements within government departments," the DG vowed.

Commenting on the NAB intervention in the provincial matters, Muzzaffar said the anti-corruption law would prevail in the matters of provincial departments, and courts had also ruled in their favour in this regard. NAB should focus federal government departments, he suggested.

The DG also stated that investigation against Brig (retd) Farooq Maan, former chairman of Punjab Cooperative Board for Liquidation (PCBL), for allegedly transferring land worth Rs 1 billion were about to complete and soon he would share further details. He said that in the land record case wherein former Director Land Record Maqbool Dhawla was also arrested, over 450 officials had been dismissed after their recruitment was proved illegal.

Moreover, Muzzaffar said that various cases, including LDA Mustafa Town, Orange Line Train, energy department, Rahimyar Khan, were under probe and would be concluded soon.