Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has summoned the chairman National Accountability Bureau to get a briefing on the overall performance of NAB. The PAC meeting held here on Tuesday under the chairmanship of Khursheed Ahmad Shah to review and discuss audit paras of Aviation Division and Higher Education Commission (HEC). The meeting expressed serious anger over massive financial irregularities in Aviation Division and HEC.
The officials of the Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) informed the committee that a contract of Rs 660 million was awarded to M/s AAB Megha Engineering Company by the Aviation Division in sheer violation of set rules and regulations. The AGP said that the contract was illegally awarded to the company during former dictator Pervez Musharraf's era. They further said that the former dictator Musharraf inaugurated the project of New Islamabad Airport without the completion of PC-1. They further stated that Aviation Division spent over Rs 1 billion on levelling the land allocated for the construction of New Islamabad Airport.
The audit officials said that award of illegal contract by Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has been proved by the NAB inquiry and the AGP has handed over entire record to the NAB. Briefing the panel, the NAB officials said that the investigator has recorded the statement of the chief executive officer (CEO) of the company in the case. The committee snubbed the NAB officials over their failure to complete the inquiry within 4 months time provided to them by the committee on NAB's request.
The NAB officials replied that the delay in inquiry was due to non-appointment of the new chairman NAB, assuring the panel now the inquiry will be completed within due time. Member committee Shafqat Mahmood said that four months time is provided to get an inquiry conducted from NAB as per set norms, but astonishingly whenever a case of corruption is forwarded to NAB by any of the parliamentary committee, the matter is either prolonged or closed down.
He asked the NAB officials to provide all the details of pending inquiry cases with the Bureau. The NAB officials stated that inquiry in Rama Dam construction on New Islamabad Airport project is underway. The panel expressed dissatisfaction over the poor performance of NAB and issued directions to chairman NAB former Justice Javed Iqbal to appear before the panel and give a detailed presentation to the committee members on the overall performance of the NAB.
The chairman committee also directed the NAB officials to present all the details of pending NAB cases to the PAC. Shah while expressing serious concerns over the slow inquiry process of NAB said it would have been better if they had handed over corruption inquiry cases to anti-corruption department. He said that NAB has completely failed to probe plundering of public money, adding that even 25 percent of the recovered money is directly going to NAB.
The panel settled the audit objections of National Book Foundation (NBF). The chairman PAC said that National Book Foundation has played a significant role in modernizing the curriculum and providing cheap books to the students as well as general public on various topics. He recommended the government to provide space to NBF in every university, college, airport, railway station, medical college and other professional institutions to set a stall of books. He said that the government must facilitate the NBF in setting up offices in each big city so that the public can benefit from the great work done by the foundation.
The meeting also took up the issue of protest launched by the teachers and staff of the Quaid-e-Azam University (QAU). The panel said that the QAU is the top university of the country and the situation is worsening day by day either due to the protest of the students or by the staff. The panel directed the relevant officials to take serious notice of the situation in QAU and resolve the pertaining matters as early as possible.
While discussing the audit paras of the HEC for the year 2016-17 the audit officials informed the PAC that Rs 11.34 billion irregularities were observed in the financial matters of HEC. The officials said that financial embezzlements to the tune of billions of rupees were observed in top national universities including QAU, University of Information Technology Lahore, and COMSAT Islamabad.
The audit officials said that the universities' management deposited billions of rupees in commercial banks which caused huge financial losses to national kitty. The officials said that as per law all the public institutions are required to operate bank accounts in National Bank of Pakistan (NBP). The secretary Ministry Of Federal Education And Professional Training informed the committee that banks accounts in commercial banks were mistakenly opened which now have been opened with NBP.