Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Thursday set up a special committee of parliamentarians for examining the causes of escalation of development projects' cost. The committee will be headed by leader of opposition in the National Assembly, Syed Khurshid Shah, and its members include Syed Naveed Qamar, Pervaiz Malik, Shafqat Mahmood.
The committee will hold meetings with Auditor General of Pakistan, Ministry of Finance, Planning and Development Division, Controller General Accounts and other relevant ministries for evolving a mechanism to avoid escalation of projects' cost. It will submit its recommendation to the government. The PAC which met here under the chairman of Syed Khurshid Shah observed that the projects amounts of various ministries were reflected in appropriate accounts but not actually released.
Syed Khurshid Shah was of the view that examining previous audit reports of development projects without details concerning their current status was a futile exercise. He maintained that a clear instruction has been passed on to all the ministries that they should submit details of their on-going projects, along with their previous years audit accounts, for discussion in the committee. He observed that ministries lacking capacity to utilise funds of development projects surrender the amount at the end of each financial year, resulting into escalation of the projects' cost. Besides, delay in releasing the budgetary allocations by Finance Ministry also results in delayed completion of projects, he added.