Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee Nadeem Afzal Gondal on Wednesday expressed displeasure with the audit of Supreme Court accounts, saying audit of weak institutions was conducted, while powerful ones were exempted from accountability.
The PAC meeting was held on Wednesday at the Parliament House under the chairmanship of Gondal, who asked Auditor General of Pakistan Akhtar Buland Rana how could he give a clean chit to the Supreme Court. Rana said the audit of Supreme Court accounts was conducted each year and no difficulty was faced during the process.
The auditor general of Pakistan said the Supreme Court also held annual Departmental accounts committee sittings.
He said no influence was accepted from anyone during the audit and nobody was given concessions in this regard.
He said the audit department maintained a special office in the Supreme Court.
When the members questioned if there was any such audit setup anywhere else, Rana said the audit did not have an office in any other ministry and the Election Commission of Pakistan had now made a formal request for establishing an office in ECP.
The PAC then sought details of the meetings of Supreme Court’s DAC and paras related to the SC that had been settled by audit officials. Gondal said if immunity was to be granted, it should be granted for all departments, ministries and institutions, otherwise no immunity should be awarded to anyone, adding that was the prime desire of PAC to strengthen the audit department through executive order.
Earlier during the PAC sitting, members reviewed in detail the policy regarding allotment of plots to judges and generals.
Members expressed their serious concern towards officials of Sindh Ministry for Housing, which despite multiple directions had failed to provide the details of plots allotted to the federal government employees.
Yasmin Rehman said the particular details were summoned by the body five months ago, however, officials concerned were not taking it seriously and were not providing details.
Ayaz Sadiq said nothing would happen in the coming years if the body failed to acquire details from officials concerned. Upon this, the committee specifically directed the Sindh chief secretary to appear before the body in person.
Government officials from Balochistan informed the body that officials in the province had been allotted 19 plots, of which four had been allotted to judges.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa officials told PAC that the government did not have any policy to allot plot to the federal and provincial government employees and there existed no quota for the chief minister or the governor.
The PAC directed the government to end the special discretely privilege policy initiated by former prime minister Shaukat Aziz during Pervez Musharraf’s tenure, under which the elite class of the country was benefiting out of merit.
The PAC chairman also directed uploading the database related to the Ministry for Housing and Works online, after declaring the affidavits submitted by officials seeking allotment for plots suspicious.
