Illegal extensions in Navy cost public purse Rs76m

Pakistan Navy re-employed 93 retired officers without extension orders, against rules.

ISLAMABAD:

Civilian authorities are castigated for obliging their cronies by accommodating them after retirement, but the same practice in the armed forces, otherwise considered disciplined institutions, usually goes unnoticed.

A case of 93 officers of Pakistan Navy having been re-employed with all the perks and privileges without any extension orders, mandatory as per rules, would have also gone unnoticed had it not been detected during the scrutiny of the military accountant general’s books.

The audit report for 2010-11 checked records of Controller Naval Accounts (CNA), which works under military accountant general, and observed that 93 officers of Pakistan Navy were re-employed for one year without any extension orders.

This violation of rules cost Rs76.15 million to the exchequer, according to the report by the accountant-general of Pakistan (AGP).

The report did not mention the reappointed officers’ ranks, station of appointments, nature of their duty, the exact dates of their re-employment and for how long they continued to work in their new positions after superannuation as these matters do not come under the purview of AGP.

The report did point out, though, that these officials continued to receive pay and allowances beyond one year in violation of all official procedures.

Under naval regulations, retired officers when re-employed in the force are put on probation for first three months and can be retained for a maximum one year in case of satisfactory performance.

“In the absence of extension order, release of pay/allowances by CNA stood unauthorised,” the AGP remarked in its report.

‘Administrative issue’

The office of AGP deals exclusively with the financial accounts of government departments, and not their administrative irregularities.

When the auditor-general raised the issue back in October 2010, CNA replied that “the case (is) purely related to administrative matters of Naval Headquarters and it needed to be referred to that end.”

The office of AGP termed the reply ‘not acceptable,’ as the military accountant cannot release payment to re-employed officers without completion of required official formalities.

The navy referred the matter to Departmental Accounts Committee which, in its meeting on January 7, 2011, claimed that “all extension orders have been obtained which could be verified by the Audit”.

However, no orders were available when the AGP verified; instead the CNA had written a letter to military high-ups to provide such orders.

The AGP said they waited for progress on the issue till the compilation of the audit report but saw none.

The report has now been presented to the Senate.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 20^th, 2011.