The story below was adopted from the report by the Dawn on the press conference by the employees of the ADB-funded Sindh Rural Development Project. For a related report by the Participatory Development Initiatives, a member of the NGO Forum, click here.
Controversy mars another ADB-funded project
Hyderabad, 24 July – Employees of the ADB-funded Sindh Rural Development Project (SRDP) have appealed to the Sindh Government, the People’s Party and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement that they be given regular jobs as the project will soon be closed.
According to the Dawn, the employees are demanding for their salaries for the past ten months and that they should be confirmed in service at the district level in the local government department. They claimed that only 45 people from the department were employed during the first phase as against 1,700 which was initially stipulated [in the project documents]. No further recruitment was made as the project was only implemented in the four districts of the province.
In a news conference, the employees said that the objectives of the project could not be achieved since the lion’s share of the budget was spent on purchasing costly vehicles, furniture and finance the luxurious living of the officials. In a report by the Dawn, they said that that the SRDP included the construction of roads and provision of clean drinking water supply, electricity, and sewerage and drainage systems in 750 villages in Sindh. The project also aimed to upgrade rural areas, construct model villages and completely abolish bonded labor, they added.
They claimed that there was no coordination among the stakeholders and that district governments were bypassed as funds were not made available to them. They said that the bureaucrats were only interested with their perks and luxurious way of living, adding that these were the reasons why the project was being closed down, the Dawn reported.
Responding to questions, they claimed that the project was initially restricted to Thatta, Badin, Mirpurkhas and Sanghar districts and that no tangible progress was made.
During the news conference, Malik Imtiaz, Mansoor Ahmed Hameedi and the rest of the SRDP employees said that the project was launched by the Sindh Government and the ADB in 2003 with a total expenditure of US$60 million. According to the Dawn, the employees said that US$20 million had been spent on “the lopsided development works” in Thatta and Mirpukhas districts, while the remaining US$40 million had either been withdrawn or withheld by the ADB.
The SRDP employees demanded for an inquiry on the closure of the project and that those who are responsible for it should be punished.
Portions of the story have been lifted from the report by the Dawn © 2008. All rights reserved. No part of this article should be reprinted without giving due credit to the Dawn.