The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has directed ministry of foreign affairs to firm up fiscal discipline at its headquarter in Islamabad as well as at missions abroad. The committee also asked the ministry to surrender unspent amounts and savings within the stipulated time and avoid demanding unnecessary supplementary grants, which the PAC observed, had been a regular phenomenon in the recent past.
Public Accounts Committee, which met here on Thursday with MNA Malik Allah Yar Khan in the chair, examined the appropriation of accounts and audit report of the ministry for 2000-01.
The committee observed that the withdrawal of $33,957.67 from the account of embassy in Tajikistan by the accountant general of embassies and later transferring it to his personal account was a gross violation of financial rules.
It was brought into the notice of the committee that the ministry, without taking any action against the accountant, transferred him to Lisbon from Dushanbe.
Malik Allah Yar Khan directed the secretary of the ministry to take strict action against the person and also directed all associated with maintaining the accounts to strictly abide by the government treasury rules.
The committee took serious notice of the outstanding amounts, non-adjustment advances and withdrawal of surplus amounts from accounts of different Pakistani embassies.
The PAC chairman directed the secretary foreign affairs to take strict notice of pathetic state of accounts at missions abroad and appoint qualified personnel to handle the accounts.
The PAC also took serious note of the irregular expenditure incurred by K K Ghauri, then ambassador of Pakistan to Turkey and directed the ministry to recover government money out of his pension.
On another audit objection of excessive expenditure on account of telephone charges worth Rs 5.896 million at different missions abroad, the PAC directed the foreign affairs ministry to recover the amounts from the officials and get the justified expenditure regularised from the competent authority.