Jhang road corruption complaint sent to ACE over failing asphalt

Jhang politician Makhdoom Syed Faisal Saleh Hayat filed a Jhang road corruption complaint with the Anti-Corruption Establishment on 10 Nov.

He wrote to the Director General of the Punjab Anti-Corruption Establishment, and he sent a copy to the chairman of the National Accountability Bureau in Islamabad.

What the Jhang road corruption complaint says

The letter concerns the restoration and improvement of the Jhang-Sahiwal-Sargodha Road. The project spans 51.57 kilometres in two sections. One stretch begins near Km 1.93, and the other ends at Km 59.00.

Hayat says the Communication and Works Department was meant to restore and carpet the road at considerable public expense. He alleges that it already shows widespread signs of construction failure.

Hayat describes a cracked asphalt surface with ruts and sunken patches. Several stretches have turned uneven and break up, even though workers only just finished the road.

He alleges that contractors used sub-standard material, and he calls for an independent inquiry. The claims in the letter remain allegations, and officials have not yet responded to them.

Warnings that Hayat says he raised

While construction was under way, Hayat says, he flagged the poor carpeting to staff at the Chief Minister’s Secretariat, the District Highway Department and the Deputy Commissioner. He sent repeated complaints and reminders, but the work went ahead, he says.

In June 2025, he also raised it at a District Coordination Committee meeting in Jhang. The defects, he writes, were obvious by then.

Over the following sixteen months, he says, he kept asking staff at the Chief Minister’s Secretariat and the Deputy Commissioner’s office to check the work in full and to inquire into it. He says he made the requests first to Ali Akbar Bhinder and, after Bhinder’s transfer, to Babar Sahibdin.

The letter does not accuse either man of taking money. Instead, Hayat asks why the supervising officers did not act for the district’s people, and he calls their inaction a mystery.

A comparison with other Jhang roads

Hayat offers a simple test. He says other carpeted roads in the district share the climate, soil and traffic, yet they look far better.

He suggests inspectors look at the Jhang-18 Hazari Road, the Jhang-Toba Road, the Jhang-Gojra Road and the Jhang-Shorkot Road. A physical inspection and a drive over those roads and the subject road, he says, would show the difference in quality without any technical detail.

What the Jhang road corruption complaint demands

Hayat expects the Establishment to open an immediate, impartial and visibly transparent investigation that keeps to a deadline. He notes that billions of rupees of public money went into the project.

The inquiry, he writes, should establish how a recently completed road deteriorated so badly. It should also name the officials, contractors and others responsible, and find out whether anyone misappropriated public funds or broke contractual and technical standards.

He wants the law applied to anyone found responsible. A weak inquiry, he warns, would shake public trust even more in the bodies that protect public money.

Appeal to the Chief Minister’s policy

Hayat opens by recalling that the Punjab Chief Minister declared zero tolerance for corruption and misconduct as government policy. He says he respects her close attention to public works and their delivery.

For that reason, he writes, he is troubled to see that effort undermined at district level. He argues that such corruption is not just a departmental or contractual lapse, because it defeats the welfare agenda by denying Jhang’s people safe and durable roads.

The inquiry must follow merit, he says, without fear or favour, and administrative pressure or local influence must not dilute it.

A test case for the Jhang road corruption complaint

Hayat describes this as the first sub-standard project in the district that he is referring for open investigation and immediate accountability. If this case ends fairly and errant officials face proceedings, he says, he will bring several other district projects that he calls tainted with corruption and malpractice.

He therefore calls it a test case for the Establishment. He adds that a representative of his can assist the investigation with information.

For now, the Jhang road corruption complaint leaves the next step with the Anti-Corruption Establishment. Also, the Jhang road corruption complaint will show whether an inquiry follows, and whether investigators test the road itself. Officials at the Communication and Works Department have not responded to the Jhang road corruption complaint.