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World Bank Team Coming to Investigate SAP Scam - Social and Economic Policy - Global Policy Forum World Bank Team Coming to Investigate SAP Scam
By Rauf Klasra
Dawn
February 15, 2001The World Bank's Corruption and Fraud Investigation Unit (CFIU) is arriving in Pakistan to investigate alleged $400 million (Rs20 billion) embezzlement in the Social Action Programme (SAP-II) , an authoritative source told Dawn.
The CFIU and officials from Bank's Institutional Integrity Department will conduct investigations in collaboration with the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and Auditor General of Pakistan.
It will also review official documents and verify assets in all the four provinces and the federal capital territory under SAP-II.
The source said the government has agreed to cooperate with the CFIU after a lot of reluctance and only after World Bank named it as "Field & Integrity Assurance Mission."
The source said that the CFIU team comprised of two British and two Pakistan nationals besides a Canadian.
The CFIU will examine Auditor General's observations (audit reports) which had pin-pointed the fraud and corruption in the Social Action Plan.
Earlier, sources said, acting Country Director Pakistan and Afghanistan South Asia Region, Abid Hasan, through a letter had informed the Finance Ministry that the mission would be headed by Mr Terence Matthews (British national), head of investigation/ operations and include Mohammad Ashraf, procurement adviser (a Pakistani national), Peter Dent, senior forensic accountant (Canadian) and Duncan Smith, lawyer/ investigator (British) for conducting the entire operation.
Mr Arif Yaqub, World Bank's senior financial management specialist at Islamabad office, will also be a member of the team and coordinate the programme.
The Unit was set up in 1997 on the initiative of Mr James Wolfenson, President of the Bank, to "abate fraud and corruption" under the bank-supported operations.
The unit was progressively staffed and has now been subsumed into the new department of the Institutional Integrity, reporting directly to the president of the bank.
The mandate of the CFIU includes investigation of fraud and corruption involving the bank staff, suppliers, contractors and officials of member governments under the bank-supported operations.
The source said the objectives of the CFIU were quite different from that of a regular supervision, procurement review and or financial management review mission.
"The mission will focus on the expenditures where the findings of the Auditor General of Pakistan indicate actual and potential fraud," the source quoted World Bank as telling the government.
"Additionally, other alleged irregularities conveyed to the bank by various independent sources would also be investigated."
The source said the main objectives of the mission are to examine AGP's observation where these indicate actual and potential fraud and corruption, review and determine the integrity of process followed for procurement of goods, works, and services under the SAP-II which would include verification of physical assets in the selected districts of provinces of Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and NWFP and Islamabad capital territory.
The CFIU will also "understand and evaluate" the actions planned or initiated by the government of Pakistan to assuage AGP's observations and "effect recovery of ineligible payments" and coordinate strategy and mechanism for further investigation of possible fraud and corruption under the bank supported operations in Pakistan.
The team may include any government agency dealing in investigation of fraud and corruption in its investigative efforts. "It has been decided to take help from the National Accountability Bureau for this purpose," the source said.
It will also work in close cooperation with the Ministry of Finance, Economic Affairs Division and office of the AGP.
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