PML-N’s claims of transparency fail to withstand parliamentary scrutiny

ISLAMABAD: As the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) took up the latest financial audit reports on Thursday, the PML-N government’s claim that it followed transparent processes to award contracts for development projects could not withstand parliamentary scrutiny.

The federal government awarded contracts valued at Rs369.3 million for technical studies of two LNG-fired power plants by circumventing competitive bidding, the commercial audit director general informed the PAC. These power plants are being set up in Punjab at a cost of Rs189 billion.

The audit objections pertain to the fiscal year 2015-16, which is the latest audit report compiled by the Auditor General of Pakistan.

In order to avoid a competitive bidding process, the government declared an emergency while terming both projects to be of “national interest”, said the DG. The authorities committed irregularities, as they violated the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority rules that ensure competitive bidding, he added.

The AGP sought the PAC’s directives to identify the persons responsible for “circumventing the tendering process”.



Power Secretary Yousaf Naseem Khokar tried to defend the decision of declaring an emergency to qualify for an exemption from PPRA rules.He could not, however, convince the PAC. Khokar said that the projects had to be executed on fast track basis due to critical energy shortages.

But former minister for water and power Naveed Qamar argued that if this benchmark was accepted, then all power sector projects would have to be exempted from competitive bidding.

The PAC also observed that the authorities had sufficient time to invite bids for awarding technical study contracts to consultants.

The PAC could not take a decision on the matter due to the absence of critical information about the bidders and the profiles of the companies that were given preference.

A significant amount of the PAC’s time is wasted because it is provided with half-baked and incomplete information, remarked PPP Senator Sherry Rehman.



The senator also grilled the government over the missing names of vendors from the PAC brief, which was the responsibility the National Engineering Services Pakistan (Nespak), which sublet the contracts without following due process of bidding in the provided list.

“It sounds that these vendors are paper companies’, Rehman said while asking Nespak to submit complete profiles of these companies at the next PAC meeting.

This incomplete information also forced PAC Chairman Khursheed Shah to call off the meeting.

Shah observed that the companies that received these contracts were unknown. He said that if the government did not want to follow PPRA rules, it should wind up the authority. Usually, violations of PPRA Rules are considered serious irregularities that may lead to serious action against the responsible officials.

The PML-N government takes pride in claiming that there was no major corruption scandal against it during the past four years. The claim is now being put to the test after the PAC took up the current audit report, which Khursheed Shah termed a “historic moment in parliamentary history”.



So far, the PAC was taking up audit reports from years past, which, according to the PAC chairman, may be as much as 18-years-old. To commemorate the occasion, the PAC had also invited National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq.

Shah said that discussions on the latest audit reports would ensure accountability of bureaucrats who make these decisions. He said that due to the huge pendency and delays in discussing them, the bureaucrats responsible for taking irregular decisions had either died or retired from service.

The National Assembly speaker, in his remarks, observed that the PAC may have to constitute a monitoring committee to follow up on the implementations of its decisions. He hoped that discussions on the latest audit reports would result in savings for the national exchequer and reduce the time taken for the implementation of various projects.