Share this story!            

Citizens demand investigation into school-collapse

Daily Times Monitor

LAHORE: Citizen groups in Pakistan are demanding an investigation into why so many schools, an estimated 10,000, collapsed during the October 8 earthquake, reported The Christian Science Monitor.

“The earthquake was quite intense, but shoddy materials used in construction may have caused even more deaths,” Bushra Gohar, director of the Human Resource Management and Development Centre in Peshawar, told the website.

CSM said that Gohar and other experts claimed systemic corruption in government construction projects was directly responsible for the devastating losses among the next generation. “This is criminal negligence by the state,” said Gohar, whose organisation is considering a public interest lawsuit against the Education Department and the Communications and Works Department.

“We definitely call for an investigation, to protect children in the future,” Arshad Mehmud, the deputy national coordinator of the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child, told the website. “We need an external, impartial probe, because if you do it through the existing bureaucracy, they won’t be able to give a fair assessment,” he added.

According to CSM, neither Pakistan’s federal or provincial government has undertaken an investigation into the school collapse. Any such probe is also not likely soon, given that the government machinery from top to bottom is either overwhelmed with relief efforts, or damaged itself from the quake, the website quoted observers as saying.

“Definitely the government is interested in investigating this. But the first priority is to rehabilitate the people,” said Shafiullah Khan, the special secretary of NWFP’s Schools and Literacy Department.

Meanwhile, parents are not waiting around for the government, reported CSM. Prompted by growing fears, they are taking matters into their own hands, directly confronting school administrations about safety.

Zarina Jillani’s children attend Froebel’s International School in Islamabad, which was partially damaged in the quake. “The school administration tried to conceal the cracks, but the parents found out,” she claimed.

Following an angry showdown between parents and the school administration, Jillani told the website, the municipal authority stepped in, ordering the school shut down until an independent body could certify the building’s safety.

Activists told CSM that a full investigation into the weakness of public structures across the earthquake zone could lead to better safety measures in the future. But many said that, even without an investigation, the devastation of schools could be put down to the widespread corruption in government building projects.

“The problem with government schools is that there is so much corruption with construction that many materials are not used,” Sameen Mehmood Jan, an opposition member of the NWFP Assembly, told the website. “I know the buildings are not seismic proof, but at least the roofs shouldn’t have collapsed the way they did.”

Experts estimate that between 30 and 60 percent of funds for government buildings, including schools, are siphoned off by corrupt officials. Contractors squeezed by such kickbacks have less to spend on materials, experts explain, resulting in poor quality buildings. “This was a common practice throughout Pakistan, but particularly in NWFP. We have been tolerating this kind of corruption in Pakistan for years,” Gohar told CSM.

Home | National

Share this story!