The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the Parliament has constituted two subcommittees to look into the matters of massive corruption and improvement in internal controls of various public sector entities. The PAC meeting, which was held here on Monday under the chairmanship of Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly (NA) Mian Shahbaz Sharif to get briefing on the organisation of the Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP), said the PAC had decided to defer planned briefing by National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to the committee on various pending cases.
The chairman PAC said the members had decided first to get a detailed briefing on Ministry of Energy, Power Division, of the ongoing water related projects and power projects which would be held today (Tuesday) after that the panel would ask NAB to present briefing.
The PAC jointly constituted a subcommittee under the chairmanship of Syed Fakhar Imam to look into the matters of massive financial embezzlements in awarding the lease of Grand Hyatt Hotel Islamabad and Railways Royal Palm Club and fix the responsibility as well as the reason in long delay of Islamabad International Airport completion.
The sub-committee under Fakhar Imam will submit a detailed report on abovementioned matters in thirty days, while the other sub-committee under Shahida Rehmani will report about the capacity building of government institutions within two months.
The auditor general of Pakistan briefed the committee on matters related to the Grand Hyatt Hotel and New Islamabad Airport projects and Railway Royal Palm Club Lahore.
The panel was briefed about the functions, role, organisational structure, limitations, staff, performance, annual budget and challenges of AGP. The meeting was informed that at present AGP consists of 4,033 staff with having operations in 30 filed offices countrywide. The AGP further said that at present the body is facing a serious shortage of staff of 1,463 personnel, adding that over the years AGP was also not restructured while there has been massive expansion in government departments.
The meeting was informed that major responsibility of the AGP was financial accountability process of the government of Pakistan. The AGP officials complained that a number of public sector organisations have not formed rules and regulations on audit, moreover these public sector departments are not only violating PPRA rules but are also not cooperating with auditors.
The AGP said the institution was operating as an attached department of the Ministry of Finance but it should be made an independent body so that no one could influence the working of the institution. The panel was informed that as a result of PAC's directions in past year, the AGP recovered Rs 160 billion from various defaulters.
Member Committee Riaz Fatyana said that no doubt corruption was an issue but governance was also a serious matter. He said as a result of bad governance many projects were delayed despite clear orders of the principal accounting officers (PAOs) of ministries.
Member Committee Ejaz Shah said that one of the major issues responsible for delay of projects was incompetency of the officials, adding the issue needed immediate attention; otherwise, same practice would keep going on.
Briefing the PAC meeting, the auditor general said that their function was to ensure transparency in the public offices and added that his organisation was working under the clauses of 168 and 171 of the Constitution.
He said they worked in collaboration with the Parliament and the administration to ensure transparency. The auditor general told the meeting that audit papers of Grand Hyatt hotel, Palm Club and new airport were under consideration.
The panel was informed that Rs 3.4 billion were outstanding against the management of the Royal Palm Club Lahore, while national kitty had to face estimated losses of Rs 65 billion due to long delay in the construction of Islamabad International Airport.
The panel was further informed that during the rule of Pervez Musharraf, land for the construction of Grand Hyatt Hotel Islamabad was leased out to M/s BNP Group at Rs 4.882 billion in violation of the set rules and regulations. First the lease was for a period of 29 years which was later extended to 49 years.