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Secretary Ministry of Energy, Power Division, Irfan Ali on Friday urged the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) to revisit daily meetings of the panel on Ministry of Energy and related departments, saying that the senior officials spend all their time in attending meetings and fail to perform their other duties.
Irfan Ali requested this to a subcommittee of the PAC which met here under the chairmanship of Rana Tanveer Hussian to discuss and review audit paras of the Ministry of Energy, Power Division, of 1999-2000.
The chairman directed the Auditor General of Pakistan and other federal departments to discuss and review audit objections up to Rs5 million in departmental accounts committees to ease workload on main PAC as well as its subcommittees. The secretary said that AGP official are habitual of bringing audit paras into PAC that are also settled at DAC level.
Responding to the request of the federal secretary, the chairman committee said that the panel wants to clear the audit objections against various projects launched in the past. He added that the present government has only one strong desire to review audit objection raised on the projects of previous government, which is against the global parliamentary norms.
Irfan Ali said, "Meetings of sub-committee are being held on daily basis and senior officials of the ministry and attached departments have to attend the meetings and as a result they are unable to perform their due duties." The secretary requested the PAC chairman, "Please review the policy if you are becoming chairman of the main PAC panel." Rana Tanvir replied that the government was reluctant to give PAC chairmanship to the opposition and wanted to review audit paras of projects of previous government; therefore, sub-committees were made.
However, this is unprecedented and against the democratic norms all over the world, the convener said, adding there is no precedence of seven subcommittees in the past. The chairman committee also expressed serious reservations on the performance of the Ministry of Energy, Power Division. He asked the secretary whether all the heads of power distribution companies are present in the meeting, to which the secretary responded that all heads were not summoned in the meeting.
Their presence in the field is must due to Ramazan and hot weather, the secretary replied to the convener when asked to ensure their presence in the next meeting. Raja Pervez Ashraf said that Independent Power Producers (IPPs) were brought in for emergency situation therefore the contract with them has to be honoured at any cost.
The convener of the meeting addressing the audit officials said that they must avoid making audit paras as per the policy of the government but these must be treated as per set rules and regulations.
Member committee Riaz Fatyana asked the secretary energy what the stance of present government is on IPP's in comparison with the previous governments. The secretary replied that since the government is the only client of these IPPs; therefore, it has to make payment to these IPP's against their capacity even if they are closed.
The secretary Power Division said that as per agreement with the IPPs, they are paid as per their capacity and fuel consumption. "They are paid as per their capacity regardless of whether they generate electricity or not."

Copyright Business Recorder, 2019

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