The Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) has informed the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the Parliament that his office in collaboration with other stakeholders is introducing internal audit system in a bid to make audit system more transparent and avoid long delays in settling the audit objections.
He said this while briefing the PAC meeting held here under the chairmanship of Rana Tanvir Hussain while discussing the annual financial accounts of the government for year 2017-18.
He added that AGP will take up the audit paras with the concerned ministries in departmental accounts committee (DAC) meetings to avert delays in settling of the paras.
Member committee Khawaja Asif said that the cost of the projects goes up manifold due to delay in fund releases by the Ministry of Finance; therefore, it is need of the hour to avoid waste of resources by timely releasing the funds for all the undertaken projects.
Secretary finance said that during this year, the government has ended the role of Finance Ministry in releasing supplementary funds during the first nine months, adding that concerned ministries are authorized to do so.
Khawaja Asif during the meeting suggested the participants not to send cases to National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), saying that over the past 20 years the PAC has unearthed various mega scams involving billions of rupees embezzlements but neither NAB nor FIA has done anything to bring the culprits to task.
The committee agreed to the recommendation and said that there should be a parliamentary mechanism to deal with such cases, saying that concerned ministries and divisions should be asked to carry out inquiries in irregularities and then accordingly cases must be registered against the culprits on the recommendations of the ministries and AGP.
Khawaja Asif said if all ministries and Auditor General officials enhance their cooperation and liaison, pending audit paras could be settled without delay.
Senator Shibli Fraz said the corruption can not be routed out from the system until vigorous punishment for guilty and appreciation for good people is introduced.
Khawaja Asif said it seems inappropriate to refer every second case to Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) or National Accountability Bureau (NAB).
The chairman PAC also said the committee will soon start examining audit report of Utility Stores Corporation and other attached departments of Ministry of Industries.
The chairman PAC remarked though Shehbaz Sharif had been barred form discussing the audit reports of PML-N government, the paras of that time are still pending.
He asked PAC Directorate to inquire from the concerned ministries when they will start internal audit. The chairman directed the members to chalk out a strategy to clear the backlog and make it a practice to review current audit reports for streamlining the overall system.
Auditor General Javaid Jehangir informed the committee that a new system of chief internal audit officer in every ministry is being introduced which will help resolve petty issues at the level of ministries.
The chairman said that members have been advised to refer such matters to the main PAC which may be forwarded to the concerned agency after thorough examination.
Khawaja Asif said he has the experience being a senior member of PAC that PAC could only examine minor and petty issues. The DG Federal Audit briefing on the financial accounts of 2017-18 told the committee that total budget of 2017-18 was Rs 27 trillion but Rs 37 trillion were spent in the financial year. He said that ninety percent of the total budget was spent in debt payment which showed that the budget estimation was inaccurate.
The secretary finance said supplementary grants are used only in emergency and no supplementary grant was requested from the government during the 7 months of the current financial year.