When Public Assets Exist Only in Memory: The Sports Directorate's Missing Stock Register

 

Musarrat Ullah Jan , KikxNow , Digital Creator

Every government office is expected to maintain certain records regardless of whether it performs efficiently or poorly. Among the most basic of these records is the stock register. It is not a luxury, nor is it an optional administrative exercise. It is the official document that tells the government what it owns, where those assets are located, who is responsible for them, and whether they still exist.

Without a stock register, no department can honestly claim that it knows the status of public property under its control.

Recent developments in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Sports Directorate raise an uncomfortable question. If reports are accurate that the official sports hostel has been functioning for years without any stock register, then the issue is much bigger than poor record-keeping. It points towards a complete collapse of administrative discipline.

The hostel is not a private guest house. It is a government facility established with public money for athletes who represent the province. Every bed, chair, cupboard, air conditioner, fan, mattress, curtain, water dispenser, LCD television, computer, refrigerator, and electrical appliance belongs to the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Each of these assets should have a documented history.

When was it purchased?

What did it cost?

Which room received it?

Who approved its installation?

If it was shifted elsewhere, who authorized the transfer?

If it became damaged, who certified it?

If it was condemned, where is the disposal record?

These are not difficult questions. In a properly managed department, the answers are available within minutes by opening the stock register.

But what happens when no register exists?

The answer is simple. Nobody knows anything.

This apparently became evident during a recent inspection ordered by the Director General Sports. An official assigned to examine hostel affairs reportedly asked the superintendent to produce the stock register. Instead of producing documents, the response was that no register existed. The hostel had simply been handed over by the previous official without any documented inventory.

That single statement reveals years of administrative negligence.

A verbal handover has no legal value when government property is involved. Government assets cannot be transferred through memory or personal understanding. Every transfer requires written documentation.

Otherwise, responsibility disappears.

This absence of documentation also explains why controversies surrounding hostel equipment continue to emerge.

One reported example involves an LCD television that had been installed for athletes. According to accounts circulating within the department, a senior officer later removed it while claiming it was his personal television.

Whether that claim is true or false is almost secondary.

The real question is different.

If it was personal property, who authorized its installation inside a government hostel?

Was permission granted in writing?

Was it entered into any inventory?

Was there any acknowledgment that privately owned equipment had been placed inside government premises?

If none of these records exist, the system itself created the confusion.

Another reported incident concerns a large LCD television removed from the hostel on the justification that it would be used for CCTV monitoring.

Again, several questions arise.

Why was equipment meant for athletes diverted elsewhere?

Did the department lack a dedicated monitor for surveillance?

Who approved the decision?

Was any replacement provided?

Sources now claim that the replacement equipment is not functioning properly.

These may appear to be small matters individually, but together they expose a much larger administrative weakness.

Government departments are judged not merely by large development projects but also by how they protect ordinary public property.

Ironically, the weakest employee often carries the greatest risk.

The hostel superintendent usually serves in Grade-15.

Most administrative decisions, however, are made by officers in Grade-18 or higher.

When records are missing, it is usually the junior employee who faces inquiries despite having little authority over past decisions.

If a chair purchased ten years ago cannot be located today, how can a superintendent who assumed charge last year explain its disappearance without any inventory handed over to him?

This is precisely why stock registers exist.

They protect government property.

They also protect government employees.

The absence of proper documentation creates uncertainty for everyone.

Equally worrying is the possibility that the current administration may now have to begin documentation from zero.

Sources indicate that officials may prepare fresh inventories covering only the items presently available.

That is certainly better than maintaining no records at all.

However, a fresh inventory cannot answer an important question.

What assets existed before today?

If nobody knows what was originally purchased, nobody can determine what has disappeared over the years.

That uncertainty should concern not only the Sports Directorate but also audit authorities.

Every government department is financed by taxpayers.

Citizens therefore have a legitimate right to know whether government property is properly recorded, maintained, and protected.

Transparency begins with documentation.

Without documentation, accountability becomes almost impossible.

This issue should not become another controversy driven by personalities or departmental rivalries.

It should instead become an opportunity to strengthen institutional systems.

The Director General Sports deserves credit if the recent inspection has finally exposed these weaknesses and initiated the process of documenting hostel assets.

But documentation alone is only the first step.

A complete physical verification should be conducted.

Every room should be inspected.

Every government asset should be tagged.

Historical purchase records should be examined.

Missing items should be identified.

Where records exist elsewhere, they should be reconciled with physical inventories.

Responsibility should then be fixed according to documented evidence rather than assumptions.

Government institutions cannot rely on memory.

People retire.

Employees are transferred.

Officers change.

Only records remain.

The Sports Directorate has invested significant public resources in sports facilities over many years. Those investments deserve proper protection.

A stock register may seem like an ordinary register kept inside an office cupboard.

In reality, it is the foundation of financial accountability.

Without it, millions of rupees worth of public assets become little more than estimates.

And when public assets exist only in memory, accountability becomes almost impossible.

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