Recommending to the government to make Auditor General Pakistan (AGP) an independent institution, a subcommittee of Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Friday asked the AGP to bring draft proposals in this connection so that the panel can also recommend it to the Parliament. The subcommittee of the PAC met here under the chairpersonship of Shahida Akhtar Ali to get a briefing on the overall organisational structure, functions, objectives and problems being faced by the AGP.
Auditor General of Pakistan Javaid Jehangir while briefing the participants of the committee said that it has been decided to create a separate wing to carry out the audit of various projects under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). He said that the AGP is facing serious financial crisis to implement a number of planned projects including automation of the entire system, upgrading the audit academy which is operated in 45 years old building and construction of a training institute in Islamabad for which land has been allocated but funds are not available. The panel was briefed about the functions, role, organisational structure of AGP, limitations, staff, performance, annual budget and challenges. The meeting was informed that at present AGP consists of 4,033 staff with having operations in 30 filed offices countrywide. The AGP further said that at present the body is facing a serious shortage of staff of 1,463 personnel, adding that over the years AGP has been also not restructured while there has been massive expansion in government departments.
The meeting was informed that major responsibility of the AGP is financial accountability process of the government of Pakistan. The AGP officials complained that a number of public sector organisations have not formed rules and regulations on audit, moreover these public sector departments are not only violating PPRA rules but also not cooperating with auditors.
The AGP said that the institution is operating as an attached department of Ministry of Finance but it should be made independent body so that no one can influence the working of the institution. The panel was informed that as a result of PAC's directions in past year, the AGP recovered Rs 160 billion from various defaulters.
The AGP officials gave a briefing to the panel members on how to enhance the capacity building of the staff of the audit department, internal audit and control system of the ministries/divisions, as well as on perks/privileges and independence of the audit department.
Member committee Noor Alam Khan said that constitutional bodies like National Accountability Bureau (NAB), besides getting handsome salaries, are also getting 25 percent reward over recovering corruption money, adding if such a reward can be made legal for NAB, it should be available for AGP which manages to recover multibillion rupees per year from defaulters. Noor further said that the Ministry of Finance must provide required funds to the AGP for up-gradation of the system, especially for automation of the record, to make it more transparent and efficient. Jahangir said, "We are not empowered to criminalise the persons/institutions pointing out financial irregularities in their accounts, however we can request the Principal Accounting Officers (PAOs) and PAC to probe such dubious matters."
The representative of the Finance Ministry informed the panel that the ministry has not received any request for releasing funds for the automation of the auditor general, adding that once the ministry gets such a request, it will consider it as per set rules and regulations.
The panel asked the Finance Ministry that the PAC is directing the Finance Division to release an estimated Rs 200 million required funds to the AGP office in a bid to make the operations of the entity transparent and efficient.
The AGP officials said that all arrangements have been finalised to carry out the audit of the audit department as per directives of the PAC through a third-party and it would start soon.
The panel was further informed that AGP is not only carrying out audit of the public sector entities but over 200 foreign-funded projects are also audited by the AGP on the request of the global aid agencies operating in Pakistan.
The audit officials told the committee that the officials of other federal departments are promoted to grade-21 on attaining the age of 52 while AGP officials get grade-21 at the age of 58, which is a 'serious discrimination.'
They said that the AGP at present is responsible for conducting the audit of 47,000 departments, while the AGP officers are not provided with official vehicles and are only paid travel and dining allowances.
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