Staff Reporter: 

QUETTA: A special audit has uncovered alleged financial irregularities amounting to Rs16.8 billion under the Ten Billion Tree Tsunami Project in Balochistan, citing underperformance, unverified spending, and poor monitoring. However, the provincial forest and wildlife department has strongly denied the allegations, terming the audit findings false and baseless.

According to the audit, only 12.5 million trees were planted out of a targeted 106.5 million, resulting in an estimated financial loss of Rs15 billion. The report also noted that frequent transfers of project officials disrupted implementation, while Rs278 million worth of records were not provided to auditors.

Other key findings included Rs550 million lost due to lack of monitoring, Rs20 million in suspicious spending on a mega nursery, Rs50 million in unpaid taxes, Rs9 million in unauthorized payments through fake reporting, and Rs6 million spent without approval to extinguish a forest fire in Sherani’s pine nut forests.

In response, the Balochistan Forest and Wildlife Department issued a formal statement rejecting the report’s contents. It urged journalists, media houses, and social media users to verify any information related to the department before publication, accusing sections of the media of spreading misinformation without proper fact-checking.

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Quetta Voice is an English Daily covering all unfolding political, economic and social issues relating to Balochistan, Pakistan's largest province in terms of area. QV's main focus is on stories related to education, promotion of quality education and publishing reports about out of school children in the province. QV has also a vigilant eye on health, climate change and other key sectors.