NAB, FIA harassing civil servants: civil secretary

Around 100 officers facing disciplinary action, establishment secretary says

ISLAMABAD: An official on Tuesday told a sub panel of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that the bureaucracy is concerned at the current campaign for accountability as over 100 officers are facing investigations by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).

“The bureaucracy is frightened by the current accountability drive as many officers are being harassed [by NAB and the FIA],” Establishment Secretary Dr Ijaz Munir revealed in a meeting of the PAC subcommittee chaired by Shahida Akhtar at Parliament House.

Dr Munir was responding to a query of a member of the committee, Noor Alam Khan, who had asked the secretary as to what procedure was being adopted for holding civil servants accountable and finding out how many plots and properties they own.

“We do not have a record of any officer’s car or properties. We are trying a new procedure under which all officers will have to declare their assets. We are amending the disciplinary rules,’’ Dr Munir said.

He said there were around 2,300 officers in police, establishment and secretariat groups, while disciplinary action had been taken against more than 100 officers of all groups. “More than 100 officers are also facing NAB and FIA investigations.”

The Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) office told the panel that it was doing an audit of the Supreme Court of Pakistan and high courts but eight companies, including the Pak-Libya, Pak-China and Pak-Saudi firms as well as the Pakistan Telecommunication Company (PTCL), had refused to get their accounts audited.

The auditor said the companies do not wish their accounts to be scrutinized by the parliamentary oversight body. The subcommittee later sought a list of the institutions that had refused to get their audit done.

The audit authority told the panel that ministries and institutions do not accept the authority of the chief financial officers (CFOs) and accounts officers and the secretaries do not even cooperate with the CFOs. It said the performance of 25 CFOs was near to nothing.

The AGP office demanded that legislation is carried out to make the AGP office a separate ministry so that it may get an independent status.  It said there is a lack of staff and offices and the top bureaucrats do not cooperate with junior officers.

Upgrading the scale of audit personnel and officers is important. All the constitutional institutions are independent but the AGP is an attached one. Instead of bringing the audit institution under any other institution’s umbrella, it should be given the status of an independent ministry, it demanded.