The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Tuesday could not take up its scheduled agenda due to the refusal of Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) Buland Akhtar Rana and his staff to attend the committee meeting. Chairing the PAC, Khursheed Shah informed the committee that AGP and its office refused to attend the meeting which is a violation of the Article 169 of the Constitution. AGP had already stated that he would not attend the meeting.
Shah further said that a sub-committee, constituted to probe the allegations against the AGP for drawing excessive salary and other privileges, submitted its report to the main committee. The committee expressed anger over the absence of the AGP in the meeting. In the last meeting of PAC, the AGP said that the committee, which is dealing with the audit of previous years' expenditure being convened under a chairman who was till last year a member of the federal cabinet, comes into the ambit of conflict of interest.
Akhtar Buland Rana termed the composition of the PAC against the spirit of democracy and refused to participate in future meetings of the spending oversight committee. This move of the AGP had surprised the parliamentary panel. The 18th meeting of the PAC was scheduled to meet with Shah in the chair to examine the leftover paras of WAPDA & NTDC Ministry of Water and Power regarding the appropriation accounts for the year 2009-10, 2010-11 & 2011-12 and audit reports/special audit reports for the year 2010-11, 2011-12 & 2012-13. Shah further said that AGP and its office were not above the law and constitution. They were of the view that only they could audit others but there was no authority to audit them. "All of us are bound to follow constitution," he added.
MNA Abdul Manan said that Article 169 may be made part of the proceedings to which Committee chairman said that it was being made part of the proceedings. MNA Javed Ikhlas said that AGP is a constitutional body and aimed at keeping a check. However, refusing to attend the PAC meeting was a violation of the constitution. He further said that the post of AGP was equivalent to the Judge of High Court and he/she needs to be an upright and honest man. The chairman PAC adjourned the committee meeting.
Rana had stated that the present chairman PAC was a federal minister and the PAC is dealing with audit objections pertaining to time period corresponding to the time his party was in power, which was a "serious conflict of interest." Therefore, neither Rana nor his department would attend the PAC meetings. The PAC has decided to recommend to the Speaker National Assembly to refer the 'financial embezzlement' case of AGP Buland Akhtar Rana to the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) after thoroughly examining the report submitted by its sub-committee.
Comments
Comments are closed.