ISLAMABAD - The newly-elected Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chairman Wednesday said that all the institutions, including army and judiciary, will be held accountable over any mismanagement in their audit accounts.
“No pressure from any side will be acceptable as I prefer to resign to succumbing to pressure,” said Nadeem Afzal Chann, chairing the first committee meeting held with a gap of six months. The chairman remarked the committee has already wasted six months so work would be pace up to compensate this waste of time. He directed all the ministries to submit briefing papers to their concerned staff. Reviewing the audit objection 2006-07 related to Ministry of Information Technology, PAC ordered to submit detailed inquiry report within 15 days on audit objection relating to unjustified expenditure of Rs4.158 million on construction of a guesthouse.
NTC Lahore Director Development had spent this amount on construction of an NTC guesthouse at DG Khan without the approval of DWP and NTC management board. The expense was unjustified and wasteful as there is no NTC office at DG Khan. The NTC management in its response had said that it was required to accommodate NTC employees during their visits to the area.
Expressing their serious concern, the committee members commented that Pakistan has not made much progress in the field of IT and such misuse of funds was unjustified. Reviewing other audit objection related to IT ministry, the committee expressed serious concerns for not utilising the grant of Rs1.60million and ordered an inquiry into the matter.
IT Secretary Farooq Awan informed the committee that gray trafficking was causing loss of $400 million annually and it was the responsibility of PTA to control this activity. On it, the PAC members decided to take a detailed briefing on the matter.