The Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) on the directions of Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has recovered over Rs 53 billion during the last 18 months, said AGP Javaid Jehangir.

He was briefing the PAC meeting here on Thursday, which was held under the chairmanship of Rana Tanvir Hussain to discuss matters related to the performance of AGP and problems being faced by the institution due to non-cooperation of Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

The AGP complained that NAB and FIA are not fully cooperating with the AGP as per the directions of the parliamentary watchdog and as a result the institution is not achieving desired results.

He said that the AGP will publish 20 years' audit reports online, adding that internal audit systems of ministries and departments is not up to the mark. If there has been a strong internal audit system of the ministries, majority of the irregularities would have been checked on initial stages.

Member committee Rana Sanullah said that massive corruption is taking place but most of the people escape legal proceedings due to absence of strong audit system.

The meeting was told that NAB has not even touched over hundred mega corruption cases during the past 20 years; however, it acted only against politicians but failed to prove anything.

Member committee Hassan Tariq said that AGP should be made an independent entity free from the influence of Ministry of Finance or any other ministry, saying parent ministry was not allowing the department to work freely.

Member committee Iqbal Mohammad Khan said that departmental accounts committees (DACs) of federal ministries and attached department should be made more powerful and effective.

The chairman committee while warning the FIA and NAB officials said that if they fail to cooperate with the AGP officials in complying with the recommendations and directives made by the PAC, the chairman NAB and director general FIA will be summoned. He added that the committee as per law will also consider other options including legal action against the departments or officials ignoring the directives.

The AGP said that the department has completed the audit of the year 2018-19 which would be presented before the Parliament in February 2020. The Auditor General said that in most of the cases his department has completed over 70 percent of the work but NAB and FIA are not taking the matters seriously and as a result cases have been kept on pending for decades.

MNA Noor Alam sought the chairman's attention towards the performance of National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), saying the compliance from both institutions is unsatisfactory.

Senator Sherry Rehman suggested that main committee of the PAC should discuss the fresh audit paras and constitute another committee to clear the backlog. Rana Tanvir Hussain also sough audit report of Kartarpur Corridor from AGP to which he responded that the project was carried out by Frontier Works Organization (FWO) which comes under the Ministry of Defense.

He said a letter has already been sent to the ministry and the audit will start soon after provision of the record of the project by the ministry. Senator Shibli Faraz asked the AGP to mention in reports the actions which AGPR has taken against bureaucrats for their wrongdoings.

The AGP replied that principal accounting officer (PAO) has to comply with the directions of PAC whereas the audit only points out the issues. "Audit is not authorized to penalize the wrongdoers, but the PAC has powers to do that," he said.

MNA Ayaz Sadiq asked how many paras against NAB and FIA were made. The chairman of the committee directed to present a date-wise report against the wrongdoers while directing NAB to ensure presence in the meeting; otherwise, chairman NAB will be summoned.

Responding to the query, the AGP said that the directives of PAC should not be mandatory to be implemented by changing the rules of PAC. The chairman also directed the members to complete the task of sub-committees and present reports to the main committee for further action.