Shehbaz Sharif chairs PAC meeting.
PHOTO:EXPRESS/FILE
The PAC also raised serious objections to the lax fiscal controls exercised by the Finance Ministry, which according to the parliament's accountability arm are causing huge losses.
The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) had made Rs7.8 billion payments to a company that had been hired for construction of New Islamabad International Airport. After winning the contract, the joint venture (JV) partners changed composition of the JV, which under the PPRA Rules of 2004 cannot be done.
The contract had been awarded to M/s Lagan-Technical-Habib in January 2010 but subsequently the composition was changed. The PPRA rules require retendering the project after any change in the JV composition. The FIA also conducted the inquiry into the irregularity but later gave a clean chit to the parties, the Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) office informed the PAC.
"It is a grave violation that even President of Pakistan cannot condone," said the PAC Chairman Shehbaz Sharif as he directed the FIA director general to appear before the PAC on Friday. The PAC also summoned the PPRA managing director and secretary law in the same case. The PAC discussed audit reports of the Aviation Division for the year 2012-13 that involved Rs52 billion worth of audit objections.
Out of these, nearly Rs33 billion worth objections pertained to the construction of New Islamabad International Airport, which had earlier been named as New Benazir Bhutto International Airport.
On the proposal of the members belonging to the Pakistan People Party (PPP), the PAC also recommended the government to rename the airport as New Benazir Bhutto International Airport.
The auditors also raised objections to Rs20.2 billion 'unauthentic payments' to the contractors of the new airport. The rules required to make appropriate measures of the civil works in a Measurement Book. But in violation of these rules, the CAA made Rs20.2 billion payments to the contracts.
The PAC referred the matter to a sub-committee that is already looking into irregularities committed in the construction of the new airport. The original cost of the project was Rs37 billion that has shot up to Rs105 billion.
The PAC also setup a special committee to scrutinise the audit objections against the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA). It also directed the PIA management to give a briefing the next week.
The PAC directed the Ministry of Finance to finalise recommendations in two weeks to improve the fiscal controls. It had objected to issuance of supplementary grants by the bureaucrats without the approval of the parliament. During the past couple of years, the supplementary grants exceeded by 30% from originally approved budget by the parliament.
"There is a need to review powers that give authority to issue supplementary grants without approval of the parliament," suggested the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) MNA Syed Fakhr Imam. He observed that over the years the financial powers have drifted away from the parliament to the bureaucracy.
The director general federal audit informed the PAC that the Supreme Court of Pakistan had given a judgment on supplementary grants issue in 2013 that remained largely unimplemented.
The Finance Ministry has long been violating the prudent financial management systems by not allocating budget despite notifying allowances, said the audit official. He said the SAP – enterprise resource planning software –is being defeated by the Finance Ministry by not allocating budgets.
However, since October last year the federal cabinet is taking decisions on issuance of supplementary grants after the Finance Minister Asad Umar surrendered his powers.
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