Nadeem Afzal Chan of the Pakistan People’s Party is likely to be elected as the new chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the National Assembly as the committee is scheduled to meet here tomorrow (Wednesday) to elect its new chairman. After months-long indecisiveness, Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan announced his resignation as chairman of the PAC on November 27 last year, alleging that the government was conspiring to block the smooth functioning of the parliamentary watchdog. “The appointment of a blue-eyed and controversial person (Akhtar Buland Rana) as Auditor General of Pakistan has exposed the government’s intention to block the working of the PAC,” he was of the view.
According to treasury parties’ sources, Chan is going to replace Nisar as PAC chairman. Elected from NA-64 (Sargodha) on the PPP ticket, Nadeem Afzal Chan is currently chairman of the Rules of Procedure and Privileges Committee of the Lower House and he will have to resign from the post after being elected as PAC chairman. According to the Charter of Democracy signed by Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, the slot of the PAC chairman is to be filled from the opposition benches of the Lower House.
