Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Five senators showed up in the meeting of the Public Accounts Committee on Tuesday and foiled a bid of PAC Chairman Khurshid Shah to waive Rs 50 million audit objections against former prime minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, forcing the chairman to forward the matter to a sub-committee for further probe.

Senators Sherry Rehman of the Pakistan People’ s Party, Mushahid Hussain of the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid, Chaudhry Tanvir Khan of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, Muhammad Azam Khan Swati of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and Hidayatullah of FATA formally joined the PAC forum.

This move has a long trail of struggle for implementation of the constitutional scheme, wherein the Auditor General of Pakistan is under obligation to lay the annual report relating to the accounts of the federation to both the houses of parliament. The said report was being scrutinised by a committee of one House only – the National Assembly Standing Committee on Public Accounts. Moreover, there has been a longstanding demand from various segments of society that the Senate, being the Upper House, should have a role and say in financial matters.

The senators vowed to resist any move to guard the corrupt mafia who had allegedly gobbled up public funds on the pretext of serving the poor people.

Senator Azam Swati said that the corrupt mafia should be held accountable, and plundered public wealth be retrieved from their wallets. He said that he, as a federal minister in the Zardari government, had halted corruption worth billions of rupees in the Ministry of Science and Technology. He lamented that the incumbent regime had again appointed such elements on lucrative posts.

Swati informed the committee that during his tenure as the minister for science and technology, he foiled an attempt to purchase an aeroplane for Rs 500 million whose actual price was just Rs 100 million.

The PAC meeting was held at the Parliament House on Tuesday, with Khurshid Shah in the chair, to discuss audit objection for financial year 2012-13 regarding the Ministry of Inter Provincial Coordination and its attached departments and the Ministry of National Food Security.

The Auditor General of Pakistan informed the committee that the Ministry of Inter Provincial Coordination secretary had released Rs 50 million to a Chakwal-based welfare trust on the directives of then premier, which was an illegal act and should be probed.

Khurshid Shah, in a bid to settle this audit objection, said that the funds were released for a good purpose, but PAC members, particularly Senator Azam Swati and Syed Mushahid Hussain, bitterly opposed the move and called for further investigation, as the trust was yet to spend Rs 37 million, which were still present in its treasures.

The Audit General of Pakistan informed the committee that the senior hierarchy of the Inter Board Committee of Chairmen (IBCC), another attached department of the ministry, misappropriated Rs 273 million and had allegedly deposited this massive amount to their personal accounts in commercial banks.

The PAC meeting was informed that the IBCC had been collecting a huge sum from students in the name of attestation of their documents, and had allegedly deposited this amount in banks that were not national.

The AGP said that the government of Pakistan had been taking loans from commercial banks, but the fact was that government-owned departments were depositing public money to those same banks. The PAC was asked to issue strict orders in this regard to disrupt the corrupt who were causing inconvenience to the government itself.

The committee members concurrently directed the IPC secretary to hold an inquiry into the irregularity and identify the corrupt officials so that they could be held accountable. The committee also expressed serious concerns over the abolishing of scholarship for Kashmiri students and sought detail of this policy.

Senator Mushahid Hussain said that Kashmiris’ role was pivotal in our national policy, but the officers were mistreating Kashmiri students – something which he said was unacceptable.

The Public Accounts Committee also unanimously said that the role of financial advisers to the ministries should be enhanced to discourage corrupt practices in public departments, as people’s confidence in government departments had been shattered due to their non-productivity.

The meeting was informed that in the name of setting up latest sports facilities at the Islamabad Sport Complex, the then director general had misused his authority and spent Rs 112 million without taking permission from the technical committee of the ministry.