ISLAMABAD – The monitoring and implementation committee of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Wednesday directed the government to stop allocating money to secret funds of various ministries and Pakistani missions abroad.
The committee, which met here with Yasmeen Rehman in the chair expressed annoyance over the secret funds of various government departments and foreign missions abroad. The audit officials told the committee that a British parliament member, George Galloway, was given £135,000 in 1999-2000 for lobbying by the Pakistani high commission in London.
The amount was returned by George later, but there was no record of the amount on the government’s financial ledgers. “The time has come to end such conventions which are practiced in the name of national interest,” the committee chairperson said. Other two members of the committee, Hamid Yar Hirraj and Haider Abbas Rizvi, said the national kitty was ruthlessly abused in the name of national interest through secret funds of various ministries and Pakistani missions abroad.
They demanded the government scrap all such secret funds without any delay. The additional foreign secretary said it was a sensitive issue and should not be propagated. Responding to the remarks, Hirraj said those who had caused losses to the national exchequer should not be pardoned. However, the additional secretary said certain Pakistani missions held confidential funds which they used for the purposes of national interest.
Haider Abbas Rizvi said parliament should be taken into confidence on the issue. The monitoring and implementation committee referred the matter to the Public Accounts Committee for settling the audit objections regarding the missing amount.
Officials of the Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) told the committee that they had recovered an embezzled amount of Rs 19 billion in financial year 2008-09, Rs 24 billion in FY0910 and Rs 24 billion in the first seven months of current fiscal year in light of PAC directives.
