Public Accounts Committee of the National Assembly has conveyed its displeasure on non-surrender of Rs 557 million in respect of two different grants of Petroleum and Natural Resources Ministry for 2000-01.
The PAC chairman also directed the Petroleum Ministry to strengthen their internal financial controls and strictly monitor utilisation of their budgetary allocations.
The committee in its meeting presided over by Malik Allah Yar Khan MNA, here on Wednesday, took up appropriation of accounts and audit report of the Petroleum and Natural Resources Ministry for financial year 2000-01.
The Public Accounts Committee chairman also directed the ministry to strengthen inventory control system prevalent in its autonomous organisation and corporations and expedited the reconciliation of stores. The progress in this regard may be intimated to the PAC within six months.
While discussing working results of Pakistan State Oil (PSO), the PAC constituted a three-member sub-committee headed by Syed Qurban Ali Shah, MNA, to look into the state of affairs in PSO and ascertain the reasons for decreasing trend in volume of sales in market shares of the public entity as pointed out in the audit reports of PSO pertaining to 2000-01.
The sub-committee would also look into the loss of Rs 20.739 million due to fraud committed by a cartage contractor in connivance with the PSO officials at PSO installation at Mehmood Kot.
The committee would submit its findings and recommendations to the PAC within one month.
The PAC also directed the PSO management to conduct an inquiry into the loss of Rs 13.589 million caused to the national exchequer due to payment of penalty of Rs 13.589 million to the State Bank of Pakistan.
The Audit Department informed the committee that PSO entered into an agreement with Dubai Islamic Bank and was supposed to deposit counterpart funds equivalent to foreign currency loan with the State Bank of Pakistan.
PSO failed to deposit the same within specified time resulting in an imposition of penalty by the SBP causing loss to the company.
The inquiry would focus on fixing responsibility on the people responsible for this lapse and the report would be submitted to the PAC within one month.
MNAs Muhammad Safdar Shakir, Major Tanvir Hussain Syed, Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri, Lieutenant Colonel Ghulam Rasool Sahi (Retd), Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, Professor Asiya Azeem, Syed Qurban Ali Shah, Ghulam Sarwar Khan, Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiar, Chaudhry Wasi Zafar, Liaquat Baloch apart from Auditor General of Pakistan, Petroleum and Natural Resources Ministry secretary and other officials of the concerned departments attended the meeting.