Rana Tanveer elected PAC chairman unanimously

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) members Thursday unanimously elected Rana Tanveer Hussain of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) as the chairman of the committee.

The position fell vacant following Opposition Leader in the National Assembly Shehbaz Sharif resigned from the post earlier this month. Later on, National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser had convened a meeting of the PAC for the election of its new chairman which concluded on Thursday.

Shehbaz Sharif in his resignation note submitted on November 18, 2019 nominated Hussain as his replacement. "I would like to propose that MNA Rana Tanveer may be considered for this position as decided by the joint opposition parties," Shehbaz wrote to the speaker.

Hussain's name was endorsed for the position by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf's (PTI) Sardar Nasrullah Khan Dreshak, PML-N Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed and PPP leader Raja Pervaiz Ashraf.

After his election, Hussain thanked his party and opposition party members. He promised that he would run PAC with neutrality and work for the dignity of the Parliament.

Shehbaz had been elected as PAC chairman unopposed on December 22, 2018. Prime Minister Imran Khan finally surrendered before the opposition's demand in the wake of their threats to withdraw from all the National Assembly committees.

The committee has been non-functional as Shehbaz has not presided over its meeting for almost six months. It was in May that Shehbaz, who was on a private visit to the UK at the time, had first announced his decision to quit PAC's chairmanship, a position he had secured after prolonged wrangling between the government and the opposition parties.

Meanwhile, discussing audit paras of Ministry of Religious Affairs of 2015-16 during a meeting of a sub-committee of PAC, which was held under the chairpersonship of Senator Sherry Rehman, officials of the Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) told the panel that thousands of acres of land belonging to Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB) have been grabbed by various groups including Defense Housing Authority (DHA) Lahore.