LAHORE – Punjab Law Minister Rana Sana Ullah has said that the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) founded by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto has turned into Zardari’s party. “The genuine PPP is breathing its last,” Rana said while addressing a conference on ‘Public Sector Accounting in Pakistan’ organised by the Institute of Cost and Management Accountants of Pakistan (ICMAP) on Saturday. He said that PML-N would listen to President Asif Ali Zardari’s joint address to the parliament with peace. He said that ‘spoiled eggs’ of PPP and PML-Q had gathered in a basket. “PML-Q joined PML-N and spoiled brats went to PPP.
PML-Q is not a party but a group of opportunists who assembled during dictatorship,” he said. Hundreds of people joined hands in dictatorship’s favour and they could not be routed out. Replying to a question, he said that Chaudhrys begged Zardari to save Moonis Elahi, who looted Rs 220 million from NICL. “The province is ready to take over departments, which will come under its control after the removal of the concurrent list under the 18th Amendment. Pakistan has long been experiencing recessionary trends.
By increasing revenues and exports, we could have salvaged the position, but things have never gone the way we have been planning,” he said. He said that most of the country’s revenue was consumed in debt servicing and little was left for development and revenue expenditures. The government was taking measures to put the financial and fiscal house in order, he added. Rana stressed the need for evolving a national roadmap for countering challenges and requested all and sundry to play their role in elimination of terrorism and extremism.
Deputy Auditor General Usman Khan presented a paper and said that the Department of the Auditor General remained traditionally responsible for both accounting and auditing in the public sector until 2001. Later, the accounting and audit functions were separated through creation of a separate organisation for maintenance of accounts of the federal, provincial and district governments, known as Controller General of Accounts (CGA), he said. He said that the auditor general now performs audit function besides prescribing principles and methods of maintaining accounts as per his constitutional mandate.
The segregation not only removed conflict of interest situation but also facilitated transparency and independence of both functions. He talked about efforts of both organizations, to promote good governance issue. Experts talked about ‘Public Sector Accounting’ and other related issues elaborating the contexts and its changing role. ICMAP President Hasan A Bilgrami and Bank Islami President said that ICMAP has been organising seminars and conferences on crucial national and international issues.
Hanif Ajari presented a paper in response to the pressure from both citizens and elected officials to demonstrate their effectiveness and efficiency.
Across Europe, for example, he said, the EU has put increased pressure on government departments and public sector agencies to perform better. In the UK, in July 2008, the chief secretary to the Treasury launched the Operational Efficiency Programme, a key part of the government’s drive to achieve greater efficiency in public spending, he explained. He said that a report presented in April 2009 encouraged the government to emulate the private sector in seeking greater efficiencies in the way that it purchases and provides services.
One of the findings highlighted was ‘the need to build upon existing forms of accountability and introduce measures to improve performance management so that they are underpinned by good data and information, lead to legitimate challenge to those who are underperforming; and are taken seriously by senior stakeholders’, he said.
Beyond Europe, he said, both Canada and Australia have established formal programs and standards to measure and report performance within their government agencies. Similarly, performance management reforms have been mandated as being integral to the Obama administration’s effort to enact major changes in the federal government, he elaborated.
Sajjad Ahmad, a guest speaker from ICMAP said Pakistan’s tax setup was more pro-rich than pro-poor. Resultantly, the rich paid less tax than they should and poor were compelled to pay taxes in spite of the fact that they had a very low capacity to pay. Shahzad Ahmad Awan and Mirza Munawar Hussain also presented their research paper on this occasion.
