The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has directed all the departments of federal government for timely surrendering of all unutilised funds earmarked for various development projects to avoid audit objections.
These directives were passed by the subcommittee of the PAC which held here under the chairmanship of Noor Alam Khan to review and discuss the audit objections related to the Ministry of Communication of 2016-17.
The committee further directed all the departments to not present those financial matters before the panel which has not been presented in the parliament and passed by the parliament.
The panel observed that multimillion rupees funds are earmarked to the ministries and attached federal departments for paying compensation to the employees who are physically suffered on duty, but instead of utilization of the funds the departments after passage of the financial year were found surrendering these funds or show as savings.
The concerned departments, especially Ministry of Finance must take this seriously with clear directions to the departments to not hold unutilized funds after the passage of financial year, the panel further directed.
The PAC also showed anger over the failure of Ministry of Finance's representative, Secretary Ministry of Communication and Chairman National Highways Authority to give to the point answers to questions asked by the committee members.
The panel also grilled the Director General (DG) Auditor General of Pakistan for his failure in timely communicating with the Ministry officials, saying that the audit officials before coming up audit objections before the panel should have consult with the relevant departments.
The panel further asked the federal government to direct all the officials attending parliamentary proceedings come fully prepared as unprepared officials attending the meeting not only waste time but also cause financial losses to national kitty.
The panel said that it is required for every official attending the meeting to take all the standing committees seriously; otherwise the committees will take stern action against those officials/departments not taking the parliamentary proceedings seriously.
Member committee Shahida Akhtar Ali said that the NHA has surrendered a huge amount of Rs 2.7 billion granted for various purposes and another amount of Rs 6.12 billion was surrendered which was not presented and approved by the parliament. She, along with Khawaja Asif, said that the public departments must avoid this practice as it not only caused long delay in the completion of various projects, but also caused huge financial losses to the national kitty by escalating the cost of inputs including labour to be used in a project.
The members committee observed that public servants were causing huge financial losses to the national kitty as evident from various audit paras but the departments are coming to the meeting without fixing the responsibility on the relevant officials.
They directed the secretary ministry of communication and other departments to fix the responsibility on the officials who failed to utilize granted funds under various heads.
The panel further directed the ministry of finance to create a separate wing to deal with the grants which were not approved by the parliament but utilized by the various departments. The panel said that it would not take up those audit objections involving financial matters not approved by the parliament.
Discussing the audit objections related to the Havelian to Thakot section of motorway, the panel on the request of the federal secretary communication gave 15 days time to NHA and AGP to thoroughly discuss the matter in Departmental Accounts Committee (DAC) and bring the matter before PAC for final discussion.
The chairman NHA said over the past six months funds allocation to the authority has significantly reduced as a result pace of work on various projects has been slowed down.
The panel was further informed that Green Lines Buses project in Karachi was a federal government and provincial government Sindh's joint project, the first phase of the project was speedily completed but later on changes in the project and no availability of buses by the Sindh government the project has been slowed.
Comments
Comments are closed.