Khursheed Shah elected PAC chairman

Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Khurshid Shah has been elected as chairman Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Wednesday.
A meeting of PAC was held on Wednesday to elect Opposition Leader in the National Assembly Syed Khursheed Shah as its chairman.
Shah, who is also a central leader of Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP), became member of the committee which is a powerful body which examines the spending of national exchequer to ensure transparency and accountability.
Shah has replaced Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan who was PAC chief in the previous assembly.
Following the election of Syed Khursheed Shah as its chairman, the PAC is expected to hold its first formal session by next week when the accounts of the previous PPP government will be taken up to scrutinise.
Under the previous government, the coveted PAC chairman’s slot was initially given to then leader of opposition Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan.
During Nisar’s tenure, the committee managed to recover over Rs 115 billion from different government departments. However, Nisar eventually stepped down from the post following his party’s concerns over the appointment of Akhtar Buland Rana as the auditor general of Pakistan.
The current government earlier missed several deadlines for the election of the standing committees of the lower house.
According to National Assembly rules, standing committees are supposed to be elected within a 30-day period following the election of the prime minister. The government, however, tried to interpret the period as 30 days when the house is in session. This interpretation was rejected by the opposition.
After being delayed for more than six weeks, 34 committees were finally created on August 21. As of now, there are still 15 standing committees which have yet to elect their chairpersons, while both the government and the opposition shift blame on each other.