ISLAMABAD - In order to ensure presence of bureaucrats in all important meetings of the Public Accounts Committee, Chairman of the committee Khurheed Shah will shortly write a letter to Prime Minister’s Secretariat and all federal ministries.
The PAC chairman, who is also leader of opposition in the National Assembly, in his letter will direct the secretaries level officials of ministries to prefer all parliamentary accountability body meetings related to their ministries on their rest of official engagements, parliamentary sources shared with The Nation on Saturday.
Shah, during the past PAC meetings, had repeatedly expressed displeasure over the absence of secretaries in the committee meetings.
In some of the meetings, due to absence of senior-level officials, the PAC chairman had even deferred or postponed the audit objections/paras related to the ministries, by issuing some strict orders.
Despite the clear-cut warnings, the absence of senior-level officials in the PAC meetings were observed and the PAC chairman had also refused to accept briefing of the junior-level officials in the meetings.
Sources said the PAC chairman with consultation with other members would soon write a letter to the Prime Minister’s Secretariat and all the federal ministries for the bureaucrats to prefer the PAC meetings even on any engagements related to the Prime Minister’s Secretariat.
When contacted, the PAC member Dr Arif Alvi said that the absence of bureaucrats had been observed a number of times in the meetings.
“There should be proper action on it,” he said, and shared that the frequent reshuffle/transfers of secretary-level officials was the main issue.
“The secretaries try to save their skin with the excuse that they were transferred in the ministries some months before, so they were not aware about the audit objections of related ministries,” Dr Alvi said.
Talking to The Nation, another PAC member from the ruling PML-N Mian Abdul Manan said that the principal accounting official (PAO)/secretary was bound to attend the PAC meeting as per the Constitution.
“The PAC meetings were postponed six times due to absence of the PAO,” he said, mentioning that a letter should be written to the concerned ministries to ensure presence for smooth accountability process.
The PAC chairman had also reportedly blamed the prime minister for sabotaging the parliament’s business after the absence of secretary finance in the PAC meeting, as he preferred to attend a meeting at the PM’s Office.
The PAC Chairman, Khusheed Shah, had even deferred the business related to Secretary Finance Arif Ahmad Khan due to his absence from the meeting.
The PAC had summoned the secretary finance to seek a reply in a case of illegal transfer of billions of rupees funds from lapsable accounts to non-lapsable account, and releasing of budget near the end of the fiscal year.
The former PAC chairman, Chaudhary Nisar, in the era of the previous government, was also much strict about the absence of PAO/secretary from the meeting. Nisar also set a trend to never accept the briefing of any junior-level official in the PAC meeting.
