Expressing serious anger over the absence of federal secretary finance from the meeting, a parliamentary panel called off the meeting in protest on Wednesday and declared that those who are not respecting parliamentary supremacy must be fired immediately.

The panel decided to write a letter to Prime Minister (PM), speaker National Assembly and other relevant quarters to lodge official protest over the disrespectful behaviour of senior officials with parliamentary proceedings.

The subcommittee meeting of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) was held here under the chairmanship of Noor Alam Khan and it directed the concerned officials to take expenditure of the committee meeting from the secretary finance.

The convener committee said that as per set rules and regulations, it is mandatory for all principal accounting officers (PAOs) to personally attend the committee meetings but some officials are regularly ignoring these rules and regulations.

He further added that all the officials had arrived to attend the meeting but in the absence of PAO, audit paras of any ministry can't be discussed and the secretary finance even didn't bother to inform the PAC Secretariat of his unavailability.

Meanwhile, another meeting of the PAC subcommittee held under the chairmanship of Rana Tanvir Hussian directed the Ministry of Religious Affairs to make Halal Food Authority Pakistan active and make all-out efforts to increase exports of the country's Halal foods.

The federal secretary Ministry of Science and Technology briefing the panel on the subject of lunar calendar said that his ministry had finalised the calendar and draft had been sent to the Ministry of Religious Affairs for final approval. He added that according to Ministry of Religious Affairs, sighting of the moon with eye was essential for the start of any month.

The panel discussed and reviewed 30 audit paras of the Ministry of Science and Technology of 1999-2009. The audit officials said there were no significant objections against the ministry over the period so the audit paras be settled. The panel on the recommendation of the PAO of Ministry of Science and Technology and audit officials settled the audit paras.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2019