ISLAMABAD: The National Accountability (NAB) has closed an investigation into alleged corruption in the Basic Education Community Schools (BECS) project, a flagship programme of the federal education ministry, involving 2,007 ghost schools, illegal promotions and misuse of authority and funds.

`We closed the BECS case almost a month ago due to inadequate evidence,` the NAB spokesman told Dawn on Thursday.

He said the Supreme Court has ordered NAB not to take up cases involving less than Rs50 million as other agencies could investigate such cases.

The case of alleged corruption in the BECS programme was referred by the education department to NAB more than a year ago.

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the National Assembly is also conducting an inquiry into the case at the request of the department.

Documents available with Dawn, which have been presented to NAB, reveal that the ministry has no accurate data of the number of the one-teacher schools in the country as different figures have been shown at dif ferent levels at different times. However, 12,204 is considered the most accurate figure.

According to the documents, in 2011 of ficials told the Supreme Court that 15,101 BECS existed in the country with the enrolmentof 581,442 students. They said 77 non-governmental organisations helped in running such schools in Gilgit-Baltistan though no NGOs had worked as a partner of the BECS in the region.

The planning and finance division released funds for 15,101 schools because the court ordered to continue the schools in the best interest of their students.

Fortunately, disbursement of salaries and other payments was linked with teachers` verification by the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) which could not verify teachers of 2,007 schools because their identity cards turned out to be bogus. But no inquiry was initiated to determine where payments made for the 2,007 ghost schools earlier had gone.

Later, the 2,007 schools were removed from the list of the BECS and it was trimmed down to 13,094 schools.

In 2014 the Planning Commission asked the ministry to furnish the list of 15,101 schools for approval of an upgrade project. But the BECS provided a list of 12,204 schools and the commission approved the PC-I of the project for the schools.

An internal inquiry revealed discrepancies in data which showed that the BECS was paying salary to 10,966 teachers.

In view of discrepancies in the data, the ministry went for a third party validation (TPV) to ascertain the exact number of the BECS and their status. In its advertisement to inviteof 581,442 students. They said 77 non-governmental organisations helped in running such schools in Gilgit-Baltistan though no NGOs had worked as a partner of the BECS in the region.

The planning and finance division released funds for 15,101 schools because the court ordered to continue the schools in the best interest of their students.

Fortunately, disbursement of salaries and other payments was linked with teachers` verification by the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) which could not verify teachers of 2,007 schools because their identity cards turned out to be bogus. But no inquiry was initiated to determine where payments made for the 2,007 ghost schools earlier had gone.

Later, the 2,007 schools were removed from the list of the BECS and it was trimmed down to 13,094 schools.

In 2014 the Planning Commission asked the ministry to furnish the list of 15,101 schools for approval of an upgrade project. But the BECS provided a list of 12,204 schools and the commission approved the PC-I of the project for the schools.

An internal inquiry revealed discrepancies in data which showed that the BECS was paying salary to 10,966 teachers.

In view of discrepancies in the data, the ministry went for a third party validation (TPV) to ascertain the exact number of the BECS and their status. In its advertisement to invitea firm for conducting TPV, the ministry mentioned 14,455 schools as 2,007 schools closed in 2011-12 after verification by Nadra were also included in the list for validation apparently to pay more to the firm to be hired.

For advocacy activities of the BECS in Punjab, Rs7 million was released to its provincial office but no report of the activities was submitted to the headquarters.

On the other hand, the head office failed to monitor the activities supposed to be carried out by the Punjab of fice.

The documents reveal that the education secretary had written to NAB and the PAC asking them to put the name of BECS Project Director Shahbaz Ullah on the Exit Control List so that he could not escape abroad.

The project director is said to be the main accused in the scandal. He is also accused of promoting several officers of the BECS against the rules.

The PAC has more than once sought explanations on the issue from the ministry but it has failed to respond.

It has been learnt that a senior official the NAB, Ayesha Batool, was pursuing the case but she has been transferred from the bureau`s headquarters to its Multan region branch.

Instead of taking any action, the NAB has advised the ministry to go for a special audit of the BECS programme, the document says. The NAB spokesman could not be contacted for comments despite ef forts.