How an Ordinary Govt Servant Tricked Everyone to Become Administrator of 116 UCs

An employee of the Sindh government has been suspended after he deceived Hyderabad’s Local Government (LG) Department and Deputy Commissioner (DC) Office and became the Administrator of 116 Union Councils (UCs) of the city.

Mushtaq Ahmed Soomro, the grade-16 official of the provincial government in question, was suspended after the Sindh Local Government Board (SLGB) declared two letters– the first for his appointment and the second for verifying his appointment –as fake.

The SLGB declared the letters as ‘fake’ after DC Hyderabad, Fuad Ghaffar Soomro, asked the SLGB to verify the letters of the posting of Mushtaq Ahmed Soomro as the Administrator of 116 UCs of the city.

Notably, DC Hyderabad was given the additional charge of the Administrator of 116 UCs by the LG Department on 3 February and he officially assumed the charge on 9 February.

On 28 February, the grade 16 officer was issued an official letter for his appointment as Administrator by Secretary SLGB. The matter came to the notice of DC Hyderabad who, on 14 March, asked Secretary SLGB for the cross verification of the 28 February letter. Interestingly, on 16 March, Secretary SLGB also verified the 28 February letter, issuing another letter verifying the first letter.

In the meantime, the official violated all official protocols and started working as the Administrator of Hyderabad without informing DC Hyderabad about it.

However, the fake Administrator was caught after he withdrew Rs. 5 million from the bank account of UC 46 under the name of DC Hyderabad. The amount was withdrawn on the excuse of development work in UC 46 but was never used for the said purpose in the concerned UC. The SLGB got alerted after this and rechecked the appointment letter which turned out to be fake.

The fake Administrator was suspended shortly after and an inquiry against him is underway. Sources have claimed that the officer had been involved in similar malpractices in the past as well and used political connections to get the posting as Administrator.

Via Dawn