ISLAMABAD - Rather than awarding an honest officer, who exposed 'ghost' literacy centres in Southern Punjab, mighty babus dismissed the former making him running from pillar to post to restore his job.
Mukhtar Hussain, 38-year-old monitoring officer of National Commission for Human Development (NCHD) who hails from Bhakkar district of southern Punjab, is nowadays seen in the corridors, lobbies and offices of ministry of education and training to find justice. The young official who is also the custodian of the shrine of Peer Mian Muhammad Latif (RA) (Bhakkar) is ostensibly bearing the brunt of his honest deed of exposing above two dozens non-functional adult literacy centres in Bahkkar district, which were shown functional by the Bhakkar office of National Commission for Human Development.
Mukhtar had joined NCHD in April 2010 and was promoted on 15th March 2011 to a senior slot of monitoring officer only because of his brilliant track record and professionalism. However, fate of his appeal regarding reinstatement to the job has been still indecisive despite passing nine months and filing various appeals in the offices of secretary ministry of education and training and director general NCHD. The dismissed official has two children and an extended joint family at home to feed.  
Mukhtar Hussain, who was based at Mianwali office, was dismissed from service vide order No NCHD/2(02)/EC-5529, dated 1st April, 2013 by the director general of National Commission for Human Development (NCHD) ostensibly as a result of the complaint of District Programme Manager (Literacy) and then District Finance and Administration Manager (DFAM) Bhakkar.
Interestingly, the dismissal from service was initiated apparently after the identification of 23 ghost adult literacy centres (ALC) at Bhakkar by the Monitoring Officer, which were running at the cost of around Rs2,360,000.
Documents available with The Nation have revealed that monitoring officer during his approved field monitoring visits of the said district from 19th July to 2nd August 2012 had pointed out the existence of 'ghost' ALCs, and heavy embezzlement. And, theses centres were shown functional and heavy expenses were drawn under the literacy head in a statement given by the then district finance and administration manger (DFAM) to the said monitoring officer.
Following the dismissal from service, the monitoring officer submitted an appeal with DG office and requested to conduct an independent and transparent inquiry to probe the matter. The official also sought withdrawal the order of removal from job. The appeal was received at DG office on 14th April 2013. But the DG office after passing two months had intimated the applicant that decision pertaining to the fate of his service/job could not be taken due to the vacant slot of chairperson NCHD. On finding the response of DG office, the dismissed official submitted appeal with secretary ministry of education and training.
Documents further disclose that the secretary (MET) has ordered the DG office 'an independent/impartial inquiry to be carried out to alleviate grievances.' Upon this, the DG office constituted an inquiry committee on 14th June 2013 to probe the matter. But, the DG office once again reconstituted the committee on 28th June 2013. However, series of change in the selection of members of inquiry committee kept on surprisingly in this corruption case till the date of inquiry.
At present, Ministry of Education and Training and National Accountability Bureau (NAB) both are engaged in the investigation of dismissal of said official at NCHD. However, final judgments from both NAB and the ministry are still awaited.
Official sources at ministry of education and training informed that two top officials of literacy programme of NCHD at Bhakkar have been issued mere show cause notices due to their dubious role in running the centres and because of the patronage of high-ups while Mukhtar Hussain the monitoring officers was penalised for nothing.
Mukhtar Hussain during an interview with The Nation said that he and his family were worried and facing hours of serious difficulty due to absence of salary, which was stopped with effect to the dismissal order. "High-ups in the ministry and DG office are paying no proper heed to my appeals and miseries being faced by me and my innocent family only because of identification of the corruption." He also complained that his immediate boss Hussain Bokhari (Manager Monitoring and Evaluation) was not heard during the whole process of inquiries so far conducted to probe his case while all field-monitoring visits were conducted following his instructions. He further went on saying that ironically, the director general of NCHD along with other high-ups of the organisation during a meeting held on 14th September 2012 had appreciated his efforts of identifying non-functional literacy centres at Bhakkar. The authorities of that meeting further instructed to 'prepare a brief on this experience so that it could be shared with other provinces'. "But, currently I am faced with dire consequences as a result to my honest and sincere hard work, which was done only in the larger interest of my department and public as well," he added.
"Yet, no concerned office alleviated my grievances while no one was found ready to hear my unheard voice. For a long time I have been running from pillar to post to justify the act of monitoring and exposing the existence of large number of ghost centres," Mukhtar said.
When contacted with Ahmad Bukhsh Lehri, Secretary Ministry of Education and Training, he said that at present he has no updates about the matter.
 "The case is not in my knowledge and I have no particular information. However, I would revert after getting the information," he said. The secretary, however, assured that he would look after the matter on compassionate grounds and guilty would be punished at any cost.