The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Tuesday expressed serious anger over the absence of chairman National Accountability Bureau (NAB) from the meeting who had been summoned to brief about Bureau's performance and details of cases pending for decades.
The PAC meeting was chaired by Leader of the Opposition in National Assembly, Syed Khursheed Ahmed Shah here on Tuesday. The committee expressed displeasure over poor performance of the NAB and observed that the body has failed to complete the probe into irregularities committed in various projects. The meeting was held to discuss the NAB report on Bhara Kahu Housing Scheme undertaken by the Federal Government Employees Housing Foundation (FGEHF) and a number of audit paras regarding the Ministry of Housing and Works for year 2016-17.
Shah said that anti-corruption departments are better working than the NAB. Briefing the committee, deputy chairman NAB said that Chairman NAB Justice Javed Iqbal (Retd) could not turn up in the meeting because he was called by President Mamnoon Hussain.
"The NAB was tasked to probe the corruption cases involving public money and it should give detailed briefing as we want the cases in which public money is involved should not be delayed," the opposition leader remarked.
Shah said the way the NAB is working, it would be better that the country's other anti-corruption departments continue to do their tasks. The PAC chairman said that there is 25 percent commission for the NAB on the recovery of looted amount.
The committee members said that such meetings are not being scheduled on urgent basis so the NAB authorities must have informed the PAC about the NAB chairman's engagements. The PAC members said that they kept on waiting for the NAB chairman for over an hour but later it transpired that he was paying a visit to the President House, adding that such an attitude is unacceptable.
The committee directed the PAC secretary to issue a fresh summon to the NAB chairman to appear before the panel on April 18 to give a detailed briefing about the NAB cases to the parliamentary panel.
The audit officials informed the panel that Rs 108.6 million irregularities were detected in the construction of NAB Headquarters, Islamabad, on account of installing imported glass in building which was not part of the original PC-1 of the project.
Members committee including Arif Alvi and Syed Naveed Qamar asked the secretary housing and works why such a huge amount was spent on imported glass as it was not part of original PC-1. The secretary said that as per law revision of PC-1 is allowed; therefore, it was revised. On which the PAC settled the audit para.
However, the committee asked Secretary Housing & Works Dr Imran Zeb Khan to probe the matter of irregularities in heating, central air-conditioning and ventilation in the NAB Headquarters building within two weeks and present the report before the panel.
The PAC constituted a two-member committee comprising Mian Abdul Manan and Arif Alvi to investigate corruption and irregularities in a housing scheme launched for the retired senior government officeRs The committee said that the scheme was launched in 2006-07 and the government collected Rs 6 billion from 80 percent of the retired employees of grade-21 and 22 against 727 plots but since then no progress has been made in this regard.
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