The US is unlikely to provide Pakistan with the P3C-Orion aircrafts that were destroyed in the recent attack on PNS Mehran base, Defense Production Secretary Lt General Shahid Iqbal said on Tuesday. “Pakistan is not on good terms with the US therefore we are not expecting the new P3C-Orion aircraft that the US was supposed to provide to fill the gap,” he told a special committee of the Public Accounts Committee, which met with Zahid Hamid in the chair. He told the committee that Pakistan had manufactured 26 Thunder Jets with the assistance of China, adding that more could be manufactured but a large amount of resources would be required.
Meanwhile, another special committee of the PAC ordered special audit of the FATA Secretariat accounts of the last five financial years. It also directed the FATA Secretariat to share details of the expenditure of its secret funds with the PAC. The monitoring and implementation committee of the PAC, which met with Yasmeen Rehman in the chair, expressed dissatisfaction on the political agent system.
Noor Alam Khan, member of the committee said, political agents had carried out massive corruption by collecting electricity bills which were not submitted to the national exchequer. “A political agent pays Rs 300 million as bribe to get the position,” Khan claimed. Federal Audit DG Syed Gulzar Husnain told the committee that the political agents of FATA also did not attend Departmental Accounts Committee meetings and sent their clerks instead. Exasperated at the excessive criticism of the financial and administrative affairs of the FATA secretariat, FATA Additional Chief Secretary Fazl Karim Khattak said, “The country is being run by parliamentarians sitting in the assembly with fake degrees.”
The audit officials told the committee that the government allocated Rs 10 million for the helicopter of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governor in 2005-06 while he had no limit on fuel consumption. They also informed the committee that the governor had the discretion to launch development works worth Rs 1 billion. Yasmeen Rehman said that the government should make legislation for curtailing governors’ financial discretions. The committee also said Rs six million had been collected in fine during the said period. However the amount was not deposited in the national exchequer.
The additional chief secretary told the committee the KP CM bought crockery worth Rs 4 to 5 million. He said the spending of FATA’s secret funds could not be made public. He said the movement of foreigners in the province had been restricted to curb terrorism but over a hundred Afghan officials were roaming in the province.
