KARACHI –The Public Accounts Committee of Sindh Assembly on Monday angered with the police department for its failure in producing record of expenditure of over Rs1.5 billion incurred during 2006-07, 2007-08 and 2008-09.
The PAC, which met with its chairman Sardar Jam Tamachi Unar in the chair, discussed the audit paras of audit report of home/police/prison departments for the years 2006-07 and 2007-08 and 2008-09.
The PAC meeting discussed audit paras for three years involving anomalies of Rs216.36 million for Home Department and Rs1.570 billion of the Police Department.
A total of 38 audit paras of Police and 11 paras of Home Department were taken up, of them seven and 12 were settled, respectively. The anomalies were detected under various articles including non-recovery of police guards service charges Rs 421.203 million, non-recovery of government dues Rs77.9mn, doubtful/fraudulent expenditure incurred on POL Rs3.4million, unjustified expenditure incurred on cost of investigation Rs 18.29million, non-recovery of police guards service charges Rs 29.672mn, non-recovery of sales tax Rs 25.68mn, non-accounting of store articles Rs22.0mn, non-recovery of utility charges Rs 8.6mn, irregular transfer of government funds Rs 3.515million and doubtful withdrawal of funds Rs 0.498million.
Jam Tamachi Unar directed the police officers to produce the record before the audit department for verification, and action be taken against officers who fail in producing the record of expenditures. Sindh Police DIG Finance Dost Ali Baloch told the meeting that 20 to 25 percent of the police budget was spent on utilities charges, adding he had written letters to authorities concerned for taking action against officers involved in releasing grants without official permission.
PAC member and MPA Sindh Assembly Shama Mithani said people were losing confidence in police due to their hostile and uncooperative attitude.
IGP Fayaz Lehgari while on a query of the PAC members said that Sindh Police had serious manpower constraints which is causing law and order situation.
IGP Leghari said police had reined in crimes to a great extent, including targeted killings, extortion and street crimes as compared to last year and no untoward took place in Ramazan. He said the police were now being given modern gadgets to fight criminal elements and ensuring security of citizens.
Responding to IGP statement, Mr Tamachi said crime rate had not decreased and even FIRs were not registered when any incident takes place. He asked reasons for suspending negligent police officers if they were supposed to be posted again after a month.
The PAC chairman observed that performance of police could never improve until their political postings were stopped. There should be tenure postings and honest officers must be given authority to work to produce better results, he added.
He asked the police and home department high-ups the reasons of high utility billings in their departments and show comparative figures of Sindh and Punjab.