A sub-committee of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Wednesday suggested the government to make feasibility studies of projects to ensure proper utilisation of funds prior to commencement of next fiscal year.
Questioning the efficiency of development officers, the parliamentary body expressed serious reservations over accountability mechanism in the Ministry of Health particularly in the National Institute of Health (NIH). The meeting met with MNA Riaz Fatyana in the chair and discussed some 12-year-old audit paras of the ministry.
Fatyana observed that the government departments must arrange complete case studies of projects before the start of the next fiscal year to avoid frequent lapses and overrun of funds. His comments came while the committee members were deliberating a project of setting up trauma centre in Karachi that was actually not materialised resulting into lapse of nearly Rs 180 million.
Fatyana said it was a criminal negligence on the part of development officers, as common people greatly suffer due to such irresponsible attitude and non-utilisation of funds. "It's a tragedy that our spending on health and education sector is unfortunately disappointing. We are depending on the private sector where the medical treatment is very costly," he lamented.
"The government hospitals are already overcrowded and do not have many health facilities for the people."
"Either development officers are incompetent or they lack commitment to utilise the uplift funds meant to facilitate people," Chairman sub-committee reacted strongly. Secretary Health Khushnood Lashari, DG NIH Masood-ul-Hassan and ED Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) Dr Fazl-e-Hadi responded to concerns shown by the lawmakers and audit officials.
The PAC sub-committee was told that inadmissible payments of more than 15,000 pounds were made out of the special remittance for medical treatment. In 1994, 8,000 pounds were sanctioned for medical treatment of a Member of National Assembly.
An amount of 20,833 pound was sanctioned for the treatment of Speaker Balochistan Assembly. In another case, PIMS surgeon accompanied an MNA, who proceeded to UK for medical treatment. Expressing displeasure over irregular expenditure of Rs 46,939 on purchase of carpets, Chairman Riaz Fatyana suggested removing carpets from all the government offices besides designing transparent chambers of officers to monitor the efficiency of all the employees following the pattern of European countries.
About the misuse of government vehicles, the committee observed that private vehicles should be given to the senior government officers on lease to put the practice of having government vehicles to an end.
The sub-committee directed high ups of the health ministry to probe the irregularities and fix the responsibility. The meeting also underlined the need to streamline the accountability system in the health department. The meeting was attended by Kanwar Khalid Younis and Ghulam Rasool Sahi besides officials from the health ministry and Auditor General of Pakistan.