ISLAMABAD - Secretary Finance Waqar Masood yesterday informed Public Accounts Committee that right now the country had total debt of Rs16.5 trillion, including a foreign debt of $60 billion.
Public Accounts Committee with Syed Khursheed Shah in chair took up the audit objections on the grants for 2009-10 presented by Ministry of Finance while secretary finance responded the objections on these grants.
The committee expressed annoyance over the absence of proper record of pensioners with the National Bank of Pakistan and directed the officials to present a detailed report to the committee.
Giving its viwpoint on the issue of ghost pensioners, Auditor General of Pakistan said had National Bank of Pakistan got its audit done from AGP they would not have faced such issues. On the loans right off issue, the committee was informed that bank could not right off anyone’s loan and it could just give waver in the mark-up.
Mahmood Khan Achakzai, on the occasion, asked the officials of Ministry of Finance to give details about written off loans under NRO. On that, secretary finance said he would submit details in this connection after getting it from State Bank of Pakistan.
To a query of a member of the committee, federal secretary finance said there was no plan of privatisation of National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) while energy crisis would come to an end in a short span of time.
Secretary Finance Waqar Masood said record of NBP would be provided for audit. President NBP also responded to the objections of the report.
The PAC was told that in 2009, the first year of PPP-led government, Rs480 billion were allocated for subsidy, in which Rs120 billion were spent. The income has reduced due to low prices of petroleum.
On this, the PAC said that Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) should play effective role to increase tax network and avoid increase in the rate of GST just to increase the taxes. Abdul Manan, member PAC, said ultimate decision on price of gas from Qatar had been made and it would be 14.24 per cent per CMMBT per US dollar.