MULTAN: The executive district officer (EDO) of the finance and planning department approved development schemes of the ruling party MPAs without mentioning sites and by splitting the schemes into subgroups to keep them within the limit of Rs2 million, all in violation of the government directions, Dawn has learnt.

The Provincial Finance Department released Rs110 million for the development schemes of the district under its Southern Punjab Development Programme (SPDP) 2014-15.

EDOMuhammadAshrafapproved 44 schemes without the identification of name of the site and split the schemes up in subgroups as according to guidelines issued by the Planning and Development Department the minimum cost of new schemes under the SPDP not bemore than Rs2m.

Mr Ashraf approved the schemes, which, according to some officials, were irregular approvals leading to fraud.

Four schemes of MPA Chaudhry Abdul Waheed Arain, were split into subgroups, while five schemes each of MPAs Haji Ehsanuddin Qureshi, Pirzada Shehzad Maqbool Bhutta and Muhammad Ali Khokhar, three schemes of MPA Shaukat Hayat Bosan, four schemes of MPA Mazhar Abbas Raan, three of Rai Mansab Ali, four of MPA Rana Tahir Shabbir, three of MPA Rana Ejaz Ahmed Noon, four of MPA Mehdi Abbas Langah, and four schemes of Naghma Mushtaq Lang were approved by the EDO.

Sources said when senior officials grilled the EDO into such odd approvals, he stated he would submit a detailed reply but he never did so.

PTI MPAs from the Multan city Muhammad Zaheeruddin Alezai andJaved Akhtar Ansari were not given any funds.

Mr Alezai said they were the only opposition MPAs from the district and the government did not provide them any funds.

Mr Ansari also complained about non-provision of development funds for his constituency.

He said he would have no issue even if the funds were spent in his constituency through the person he had defeated in the election.

EDO Ashraf said he had not violated any law in the approval and splitting up the work into subgroups while nothing was wrong in approving the schemes without identifying the name of the site.

He said the schemes of the PML-N MPA were approved as per guidelines given by the provincial government.

He said District Officer of Planning Khalid Iqbal could explain the matter. Mr Iqbal refused to comment.