To effect government oversight: Cabinet Division proposes amendment to Regulatory Bodies Act, PAC body told

Cabinet Division has proposed some amendments to the Regulatory Bodies Act so that their performance could be overseen by the government, as majority of regulators are running their affairs without following rules/regulations. Secretary Cabinet Division Akhlaq Ahmad Tarar informed the Public Accounts Committee's (PAC) sub-committee that the affairs of regulatory bodies to run their business were not up to the mark.
"We don't want interference in the independence of regulatory bodies but there must be some role of government regarding over-sighting of their working," he added. The committee also showed its serious concern over missing of a gold wrist watch with an assessed value of Rs 210,000 from Tosha Khana in 1997. The audit reports observed that four costly wrist watches of different prices were handed over to Deputy Military Secretary to the Prime Minister in October, 1997 for perusal of Prime Minister. Out of four, one watch bearing TSR-1615 18 KT gold wrist watch with an assessed value of Rs 210,000 was retained by the Prime Minister's Secretariat (Internal) and remaining three watches were returned to Tosha Khana.
"As per Tosha Khana rules, there was no provision for re-gifting of gift kept in Tosha Khana. As such, retention of the 18 KT watch by the Prime Minister's Secretariat since October 1997 was unjustified and without any legal authority. Secretary Cabinet revealed that inquires were held in the past but there was no clue of the missing watch. The officials of Cabinet Division informed the committee that head of government and state could retain personal gifts after paying 10 percent of the assessed cost of the gift. However, these rules do not apply to state gifts.
Shaufqat Mahmood said that that 95 percent gifts received by Prime Ministers and Presidents in 65 years were taken away from Tosha Khana after paying few rupees by deliberately under-valuation of the gifts. The sub-committee headed by Rana Afzal examined the monitoring and implementation status of PAC directives to Cabinet Division on Wednesday.