AGP: Public Accounts Committee recovered Rs 53b in 18 months

F.P. Report

ISLAMABAD: Auditor General of Pakistan Javaid Jehangir on Thursday informed that the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has recovered Rs 53 billion in a record time of 18 months in the Parliament House.

Briefing to the PAC, the Auditor General said that 72 reports were presented to the Parliament during the financial year 2018-19 and the fresh audit report of the current fiscal year will be laid before the Parliament after approval from the President of Pakistan by 28 February 2020. He admitted that audit skills need to be improved for better reporting of audit issue and AGPR is working hard for capacity building of the audit officers.

Chairman PAC Rana Tanvir Hussain said that the Committee desires to discuss fresh audit paras of current years instead of reviewing old paras though Sub-committees of PAC worked hard to clear the backlog.

MNA Noor Alam sought the Chairman’s attention towards the performance of National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) saying the compliance from both institutions is unsatisfactory. Senator Sherry Rehman suggested that the main committee of the PAC should discuss the fresh audit paras and constitute another committee to clear the backlog.

Rana Tanvir Hussain also sough audit report of Kartarpur corridor from AGP to which he responded that the project was carried out by Frontier Works Organization (FWO) which comes under the Ministry of Defense.

He said a letter has already been sent to the Ministry and the audit will start soon after providing the record of the project by the Ministry.

Senator Shibli Faraz asked the AGP to mention in the reports, the actions AGPR has taken against bureaucrats for their wrongdoings.

The AGP replied that Principle Accounting Officer (PAO) has to comply the directions of PAC whereas the audit only points out the issues. “Audit is not authorized to penalize the wrongdoers, but the PAC has powers to do that” he said. MNA Ayaz Sadiq asked that how many paras were made against NAB and FIA?

The Chairman of the Committee directed to present a date wise report against the wrong doers while are directing NAB to ensure their presence in the meeting otherwise Chairman NAB will be summoned.

Responding to the quarry, the AGP said that the directives of PAC should not be mandatory to implement by changing the rules of PAC.

The Chairman also directed the members to complete the task of sub-committees and present reports to the main committee for further action.