LSOs give clean chit to corruption-tainted development programme

CHITRAL, April 18: The representatives of various local support organizations have expressed their confidence over the working of the Norwegian funded Chitral Integrated Area Development Project (CIADP) and said it had never compromised on quality of work. Addressing a press conference here on Friday, Sher Aga (ICDP), Islam Akbaruddin (TADO), Safeerullah (KIDP) and Asfandiar (YSDO) said that the LSO established and strengthened by the Aga Khan Rural Support Program were quite competent and viable to complete infrastructure works in different sectors. They said that each organization has technical and managerial staff on its pay roll whose accounts are audited on yearly basis as required by the relevant rules of Companies Act. They rebutted the notion of the contractors’ association as expressed in their press conference the other days that the local organizations did not have the capacity to construct the additional class room in public sectors schools funded by CIADP. Defending the decision the managing director of CIADP for cancelling the tenders for the work and entrusting them to the local organizations, they said that it was done on the basis of the past experience which fervently proved that the community participation ensured completion of project with desired specification on less cost than the other. They claimed that keeping in view the efficiency of the local organizations, the people have come to demand of the government to execute the public sector works through them and do away with the contract system. They also denied the charge leveled by the contractors that the managing director of the project had entrusted the construction of the classrooms to them for personal gains. They reiterated that during their working with the CIADP during the past five years, no commission or kickback was demanded of them and it was completely free from any kind of malpractice.–Zahiruddin]]>