Construction of new Islamabad International Airport: PAC directs Aviation ministry to resolve audit objections against CAA

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has directed the Ministry of Aviation to resolve audit objections against the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) with regards to massive financial irregularities in the construction of the new Islamabad International Airport (IIA) within two weeks.

The PAC meeting was held here under the chairmanship of Rana Tanveer Hussain to discuss and review audit objections against the CAA and the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR).

The panel directed Aviation Division Secretary Hassan Nasir Jamy to conduct a Departmental Accounts Committee (DAC) meeting to fix the matter of irregularities in the construction of the IIA, in light of audit objections or take action against the officials as well as contractors involved in the scam and present the report before the PAC. The PAC further directed the Aviation Division secretary that in case the ministry could not resolve the matter in the DAC, recoveries from the officials and the contractor should be made with sharing details with the PAC.

The secretary Aviation informed the panel that the matter was probed by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), General Shahid Niaz, and Engineer Shamsul Mulk.

The chairman of the committee said that the condition of IIA itself spoke of corruption that had taken place during the construction of various projects, and seepage in various parts of the airport was another proof of what the contractor and the ministry officials had done to the airport.

Director IIA, Aqib Ali Shah, while briefing the panel said that the CAA never awarded contract of any project of the airport without taking proper measures into account.

He added that all the works at the airport were completed as per the PPRA rules and payments were made to the contractors after checking each and every part of the undertaken project.

Briefing the panel, officials of the Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) said that the CAA had not measured the project as per set standard and payments made to various contractors were also illegal.

Member of Committee Ayaz Sadiq commenting on the matter said that either the AGP officials were taking the right stance or the CAA officials. Responding to the comment, the AGP officials said that the CAA officials instead of considering the set standards measured the project on an excel sheet, which was not authenticated.

Member of Committee Noor Alam Khan said that those responsible for the delay in the construction of IIA must be brought to justice, saying they had caused multi-billion rupee losses to the national kitty.

The committee was informed by the acting chairman of FBR, Nosheen Javed, that at present various tax cases were pending in various courts involving hundreds of billions of rupees.

Member Legal FBR said that a total of 96 cases filed on the basis of 17 audit paras were pending in various courts, of which 66 cases were in tribunals, 24 in high courts and four in the Supreme Court of Pakistan.

The chairman of the committee directed the FBR chairperson to personally follow those cases in the courts and take personal interest so that the matter could be resolved.

Responding to the chairman of PAC, Nosheen Javed said that she had recently met with the chief justices of the Sindh High Court, the Islamabad High Court and the Lahore High Court, pleading them to fix the hearing on tax-related cases on an urgent basis.