- Sepa hired GEMS as consultants to conduct the study
- GEMS awaiting feedback from Sepa on the study since six years
- Sepa says awaiting feedback from the Sindh Agriculture Department
- Use of hazardous pesticides continue to contaminate environment
For the past 13 years, the Pakistan Peoples Party-led (PPP) Sindh Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) seems to be on a secret mission of conducting a study on the environmental and health impacts of pesticides and chemical fertilizers in the province.
Despite being mentioned in the budget documents for over a decade, no one knows what kind of “study”, supposed to be completed by 2014, Sepa intended to conduct with the findings yet to be published.
Recommended by PPP MPA Ahmed Ali Jalbani (2008-2013), the proposed project, “Study of Environment and Health Impacts of Pesticides and Chemical Fertilizers in Sindh (Lakrano OR LARKANO, Mirpurkhas, Jacobabad, Kashmore, Ghotki, Sukkur, Shaheed Benazirabad, Tando Allah Yar, Thatta and Badin),” was first featured in the 2011-2012 provincial Annual Development Programme (ADP) as an unapproved project. As of now, the project is shown in the Sindh government’s budget books with unspecified progress.
What we do know is that Sepa hired a consultant, the Global Environmental Management Services (GEMS), to execute the study which they completed six years back and submitted it to Sepa. Since then, Sepa has been ignoring it.
Deliberately missed opportunity
So far, the study exists only to lay bare Sepa’s apathy towards numerous farmers infected or dead because of the hazardous use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers on crops. Due to lack of research on the subject, we do not have the numbers of the people impacted — a figure that could have been obtained if the findings from this study were made public.
There are an estimated half-a-million cotton pickers in Pakistan, most of them women. They pick cotton with their bare hands, do not wear face masks, aprons, glasses, head and arm covers. Women rights associations say pregnant cotton picking women are most vulnerable. The most common complaints among the pickers are skin irritation, gastroenteritis, vomiting, coughs and insomnia.
The project’s initial documents, available with The Citizenry, discuss the far-reaching impact of pesticides on human health, contaminating the quality of surface and groundwater and causing toxicity within most individuals who consume pesticide-sprayed fruits and vegetables. The documents also detail the excessive and unregulated use of fertilizers disrupting two main water bodies of Sindh, Manchar and Keenjhar Lakes.
Excessive and unregulated use of fertilizers has disrupted two water bodies of Sindh: Manchar Lake and Kenjhar Lake
These findings are supported by an independent study carried out in June 2008 by Jamshoro University, titled “Pesticides in the Blood Samples of Spray-workers at Agriculture Environment: The Toxicological Evaluation” which shows toxic impact on the population exposed to pesticides. The study revealed blood contamination and cholinesterase inhibition in spray workers working in Sindh’s farms. Cholinesterase is one of many important enzymes needed for the proper functioning of the nervous systems of humans.
The Sepa, under the 1997 Pakistan Environmental Protection Act, is responsible for investigating these issues through policy, advocacy, monitoring and prosecution. Had the study been successful, it could have led to the creation of a cohesive policy framework and formulating regulations for the controlled use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers, benefiting farmers across the province and, perhaps, even beyond.
Millions wasted
The provincial government has included a Unique Identification or QR Code against all its development schemes in the ADP book. The code not only gives access to the PC-1 document but also to several official letters related to the relevant development scheme. Using this code, The Citizenry accessed details of PC-1 and other related documents.
The PC-1, also known as the Project Cycle document, is the concept paper of a new project, details of the project’s proposal, objectives, estimated cost, etc.
Rs5.85 million were supposed to be spent for the establishment of offices in a bid to get this study conducted
PC1 of the study
Millions spent
The provincial government has included a Unique Identification or QR Code against all its development schemes in the ADP book.
The code not only gives access to the PC-1 document but also to several official letters related to the relevant development scheme. Using this code, The Citizenry accessed details of the PC-1 and other documents related to this scheme.
The PC-1, also known as the Project Cycle document, is the concept paper of a new project, having details of the project’s proposal, objectives, estimated cost, etc.
According to the PC-1 document of this study, Rs5.85 million were to be spent for the establishment of offices for the purpose of carrying out the study. The project’s objective was to “identify, estimate, analyse and conclude recommendations of impacts of pesticides and chemical fertilizers on human health and environment due to agricultural activities”.
The PC-1, however, accepts that the existing capacity of Sepa’s regional offices is “quite inadequate in comparison to the given mandate”.
Rs19.050 million, at the very least, have been spent, from the public tax money, on the study, which does not exist in the public sphere.
Budget book
In 2011-2012, the study first appeared in the ADP book as an unapproved project with an estimated cost of Rs50m and the same figure was allocated. In the following budget year (2012-2013), the project was approved, with the estimated amount reduced to Rs33m and Rs20m actually allocated.
In 2013-2014, the estimated and allocated amounts remained unchanged as the previous budget year. This time though, a target completion year was given and that was to be by next year.
Between 2014 and 2015, the allocated amount dropped down to Rs8m but increased to Rs20m in 2015-2016. The following fiscal year the allocated amount drops to Rs13.950m. However, what is worth noting is the budget books put the expenditure, till June 2016, at Rs19.050m. Where and how was this expenditure derived from public tax money spent is a question that needs to be answered by Sepa.
In 2018-2019, Rs13.95m was assigned for the project, while in 2019-2020, Rs8m was set aside. Subsequently, between 2020 and 2023, Rs13.950m was allocated for each year for research purposes. In the current fiscal year, a mere Rs10,000 has been allocated.
Illustrations by The Citizenry
Sepa refused the share the study conducted with public money
Sepa’s version
Sepa official, Dilshad Ahmed Ansari, told The Citizenry that GEMS was hired as a consultant for the study. They held stakeholder consultations at the start and got Jamshoro University’s Agriculture Department on board for conducting the study. The study was carried out at a massive scale that included researchers going into the field, taking groundwater samples and blood samples of irrigators. GEMS submitted their study to Sepa in November 2017 and since then they are awaiting feedback from the environmental authority.
Meanwhile, Mr Ansari said Sepa has sent the study to the Sindh Agriculture Department a month ago for their comments after which the study will be finalised. When The Citizenry asked for a copy of the study, the Sepa official said he could only do so once Sepa received feedback from the agriculture department.
Other discrepancies
The Citizenry delved into the various project documents to see what went wrong with the story and found astonishing details.
On Jan 30, 2012, the Environment and Energy Department moved the PC-1 file of the project to the Planning and Development Department (P&D) for approval.
The parent department — the environment department — prepares a PC-1 of the project, which contains its estimated cost, objectives and other details and sends it to the P&D for further evaluation and approval.
On Feb 9, 2012, the Department Development Working Party (DDWP) convened a meeting for the project with the additional secretary of the provincial finance department and the chief environment of the P&D and Sepa DG Naeem Ahmed Mughal.
The DDWP is a governmental committee which scrutinizes and approves locally-funded development schemes of the ADP. The representative of the finance department must attend DDWP’s meetings for project approvals.
The PC-1 of the project was also sent to the then-agriculture secretary on Feb 7, 2012, for his technical input. The agriculture secretary was also asked to submit any study completed through the development side or any NGO or civil society on the subject. He responded with his comments on March 1, 2012.
The bureaucratic exchange of letters continued in subsequent years.
Several gaps in the amounts released from the Sindh Finance Department for the study and expenditures against those amounts can be observed in government documents available online. The details of the expenditures, however, are unclear.
In April 2015, the provincial environment department issued a Draft Release Order (DRO) to the Sindh Finance Department against the release of Rs8m. However, no subsequent official letter shows that this amount was released from the finance department for the scheme.
The DRO is an instrument or instruction for any development scheme, which the relevant department — in this case it was Sepa — sends to the finance department, for the release of funds for their development schemes.
“No single activity viz-a-viz capital or revenue was verified against the expenditure incurred as per ADP book reflection.”
P&D’s MEC says in its evaluation report of the study
Where’s the money
Sepa officials have failed to justify the expenditures made against the release of two amounts: Rs3.4m in 2014-2015 and then Rs19.05m in 2016-2017.
So, where did the money go?
The P&D has a Monitoring and Evaluation Cell (MEC). The job of this cell is to monitor the ADP schemes and verify their physical and financial progress. P&D’s MEC visited the project office on March 9 and 10. The MEC conducted a field visit to the relevant office of the project on March 9 and 10, 2015.
The monitoring report of the MEC revealed that the office of the Forest Secretary, Environment and Wildlife Department did not have the PC-1 record of releases and expenditures of the project with them.
“The officers of the Forest, Environment and Wildlife Department briefed the MEC team about the scheme with a vague picture,” reads the MEC team’s evaluation report. The report added that not having any record “reflects doubts over the scheme’s transparency and an adverse opinion for the scheme became inevitable”.
The MEC team informed the staff that the expenditure incurred for the scheme was Rs3.4m as per the ADP document of 2014-15. “No single activity viz-a-viz capital or revenue was verified against the expenditure incurred as per ADP book reflection,” the report said.
The MEC department placed the scheme in the “worst” category for discrepancies in expenditure. It also emerged through the monitoring report that despite having released Rs3.4m for the project, no project director was appointed.
On July 28, 2015, the MEC met with then-chief secretary of Sindh and the provincial chairman of the Enquiries and Anti-corruption Establishment of Sindh regarding the scheme. On June 30, the MEC wrote a letter to the anti-corruption establishment to initiate a detailed inquiry.
Despite all these inquiries, the environment department wrote to the P&D for an extension in the development scheme on Aug 17.
Then, on Sept 28, 2015, the environment department wrote to the Sindh Finance Department for the release of funds for the financial year 2015-2016.
Surprisingly, on Feb 16, 2016, the provincial finance department wrote a letter to the P&D’s MEC regarding the scheme’s “worst” status and stated that no expenditure was made against the released Rs3.4m, which they mentioned in their report.
On June 3, 2016, the finance department released Rs19.050m for the revenue component of the scheme. To date, no one knows what happened to this Rs19.050m.
After this, Sepa stopped sending DROs to the provincial finance department for the release of payments to continue the study, despite the finance department and P&D’s numerous reminders.
On Sept 10, 2018, the P&D department wrote to the environment secretary that an amount of Rs157m has been allocated for five environment sector schemes, including the “Study of Environment and Health Impacts of Pesticides and Chemical Fertilizers in Sindh”.
The secretary was requested to make efforts to get the funds released from the finance department by sending them a DRO so that the work could be “beefed up”. The secretary then wrote to the Sepa DG on Sept 17, 2018, seeking details of the study and reasons for not approaching the finance department for the release of funds for the fiscal year 2018-19. The duration of the project expired in June 2020.
However, on Nov 21, 2019, the environment secretary once again wrote to the DG Sepa regarding the withholding of funds due to the expiry of the scheme’s plan period. The secretary also directed the Sepa DG to submit a detailed progress report of physical and financial performance and the utilisation of funds of the scheme. Available documents suggest that none was produced.
An extension in the date of completion of the project was, however, sought from the P&D. The finance department wrote to the environment secretary again on March 29, 2021, that the allocated amount of Rs13.95m for the fiscal year 2021-2022 could not be released as Sepa did not submit the DRO. In other words, it did not ask for the amount to be released.
On May 7 and June 9 of 2021, and April 9, 2022, the finance department wrote to the environment secretary that no funds could be released for the study due to the awaited DRO from the Sepa DG.
AGP report highlights discrepancy of Rs19.050 million
Unaccounted funds in the AGP report
An interesting point emerged in the Auditor General of Pakistan’s (AGP) audit report on the Accounts of Climate Change, Environment and Disaster Management Organizations in Sindh for 2019-2020. Independent researcher Sadya Siddiqui shared the report with us.
The report says that the completion year of the project, as per its PC-1, was two to three years. According to the report, the scheme’s purpose was the “minimization of negative impacts attributed to the use of pesticides”.
During the audit, year-wise budget release, expenditure and physical progress of the ADP Schemes, along with documentary evidence, were demanded. “The record pertaining to budget released and expenditure was not provided,” the report stated, adding that available records show that *Rs13.950m was released to the Sepa “but the outcome/deliverable against these government resources were not provided.”
Subsequently, the matter was put before the relevant management, who in their defence said that no release or expenditure was incurred during the fiscal year 2018-19.
“The reply of the management is not cogent, as the release and expenditure was incurred in the previous financial years but the targets and achievements were not provided to audit,” the report reads.
*There, however, seems to be a typo in the AGP report as Rs13.950m is not the expenditure amount, but the throw forward or the remaining amount after the expenditure of Rs19.050m was made.”
The Sepa official explains to The Citizenry that “the estimated cost of the study is Rs33m, out of which the budget document shows the expenditure was made of Rs19.050m, so the remaining amount is Rs13.950m”.
Ansari said there has been no expenditure against this scheme for seven years due to mismanagement. The revenue component of the Rs.19.050m expenditure, he said, has seemingly been embezzled.
Sepa has already sent the case to the anti-corruption department and is looking forward to closing the scheme once the case is resolved.
Sepa DG Mughal did not respond to our repeated phone calls and messages.
Special thanks to researcher Sadya Siddiqui for her invaluable help. She tweets @maverika
Oonib Azam is a Karachi-based journalist who reports on social justice, climate change and urban planning for The News. He tweets @OonibAzam_
Well researched story, unearths corruptions of department notoriously known for it’s negligence in it’s work.