The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the National Assembly Wednesday directed the foreign affairs ministry to hold a thorough probe into the sale of Chancery Building in Indonesia and fix responsibility on persons involved within six weeks.
The committee, which met here with Ayaz Sadiq in the chair to discuss audit paras pertaining to foreign affairs ministry, was informed that the deal took place when General Anwar Mustafa (Retd) was Pakistan''s ambassador to Indonesia in 2002. The building was sold out without fulfilling the laid down procedure and in a non- transparent manner, which caused a huge loss to the national kitty.
The officials of the ministry outrightly blamed the then ambassador for the whole deal. This irregularity was pointed out by late minister Syed Mushtaq Haider Rizvi, Deputy Head of Chancery, who was later on recalled from his post and made an officer on special duty (OSD) from 2002 till retirement in 2008.
The secretary foreign office requested to initiate a thorough investigation to ascertain the irregularities in the sale of the building. Ayaz Sadiq said the then president Pervez Musharraf formed an inquiry committee, headed by Javed Masud, a cabinet secretary and two members Mohsin Hafeez and Raja Raza Arshad - two joint secretaries.
The committee was told that the inquiry committee did not impose any penalty on the persons responsible for the issue and instead recommended its ex-post-facto approval from the competent authority. The committee was informed that the property was disposed of in a non-transparent manner ie without advertisement in the press for competitive biddings and even the ambassador entered into a binding sale agreement with the buyer without approval of the ministry.
As such the sale of Chancery building, the officials added, became controversial. The committee pointed out some irregularities including, prior approval of the committee headed by secretary general finance for signing of the sale agreement was not obtained as under the sale/purchase binding agreement, the payment in local currency was accepted.
Letter of authorisation to sell the building requested from Jakarta, should immediately be placed at the disposal of Establishment Division for posting as OSD, the committee said, adding that the officer be proceeded against and served a show cause notice for gross misconduct and serious violation of discipline, bypassing channels of communication, incorrect reporting, etc.