F.P. Report
ISLAMABAD: Member National Assembly Rana Tanvir Hussain on Tuesday stressed the need to re-examine the 18th Constitutional Amendment for fast-track development in the country.
He was a chairing a meeting of subcommittee of Public Accounts Committee in the Parliament House. The meeting was attended by MNA Raja Pervez Ashraf, MNA Riaz Fatyana and MNA Malik Muhammad Aamir Dogar.
He said the provinces had no capacity to run specific ministries which were previously in the control of federal government and they eventually look towards the federal government for a rescue in this regard.
During the meeting, Secretary Ministry of National Food Security and Research, Dr. Muhammad Hashim Popalzai apprised the committee that there were 50 objection paras from the Auditor General of Pakistan on misappropriation of funds and they were unable to respond those paras since the record was missing due to devolution of the ministry under 18th Amendment.
The committee also observed that there were some of the audit paras of year 2000 which were not settled so far.
“The ministries should implement the recommendations of the committee to clear the backlog,” said the convener adding such issues should be settled at the departmental level.
The committee was informed that former chairman of National Agricultural Research Centre, Waqar Ahmed was found guilty of misappropriating the funds and the orders were issued for dismissal from service and recovery but he he managed to retire from the post in 2006.
“Why don’t NAB go behind such people? They are busy cooking up against politicians,” observed the committee members while directing the secretary to conduct the inquiry against him and submit a report to the committee for further action.
Since all the paras were related to former chairman NARC, the committee directed the NAB officials to consolidate all paras and present a report to the committee.
The secretary informed that 26 officials from time-to-time since 1996 went
abroad on training and courses but only 8 returned. They were absolved however
18 officials never returned, he added.
The committee also directed the secretary to furnish a fresh report about the officials who went abroad on training and did not return to the country.
