Except for those sheltering flood IDPs, the government schools on KP’s plains are reopening today after the end of the three-month summer recess. Educational circles in the province have expressed concern at the report that as many as 700 schools claim to have lost their entire records to floods as a result of which it will not be possible to conduct any audit of their financial deeds or misdeeds. Floods have wreaked more or less equal havoc on all the four provinces but strangely enough KP happens to be the first, if not the only province, to raise a hue and cry about the destruction of records of some police stations and schools, which are generally looked upon as the hub of minor or major monetary irregularities. Offices of banks, health, Wapda, fisheries, Sui gas and several other departments were hit by floods with equal ferocity in rural and urban centres but why should flood waters have shown step-motherly treatment exclusively to 700 schools whose record by the way is normally locked in steel cupboards? In some cases, the headmaster or the head clerk takes home the important files in the event of an emergency.
Not that impending audit reports would probably have revealed some unprecedented depths of corruption in the affected schools and police stations. More often than not, the audit teams comprise of friendly and cooperative accountants who, if treated to sumptuous dinners and lavish gifts, can cover up the seamy sides of the budget spending. Still the annual exercise of conducting an audit of the educational institutions is a way of showing a clean face to the unsuspecting society. We do not mean disrespect to anyone but the existence of ghost schools in Hazara and Fata areas is indeed a sad reflection on the credibility of the concerned department – Statesman
