PPP’s apathy towards Public Accounts Committee persists

KARACHI: Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the Sindh Assembly held a meeting to scrutinise the financial dealings of works and services department, from 2018 to 2019, on Tuesday. However, the session, marred by the lack of interest by Pakistan People's Party (PPP) members and other senior officials, ended without any decision about the audit objections raised.

The apathy of PPP members during the meeting, however, was nothing new.

So far, during all PAC sessions a trend of indifference towards the committee's dealings has been observed among PPP members.

PAC is primarily tasked with reviewing the accounts and expenditure of funds, amounting to billions of rupees, of departments working under the provincial government.

The lack of interest by PPP members during PAC meetings has reduced its stature to that of an insignificant forum.

Faryal Talpur, who was elected unopposed to the PAC, Sharjeel Memon and secretary of the treasury department have not attended any of the committee's meetings held so far, to srutinise the accounts of Sindh University, Sindh Police, Jail Khana Jat, department of irrigation, Quaid-e-Awam Engineering University, and most recently, works and services department.

The PAC members, Ghanwar Ali Khan Isran and Farrukh Ahmed Shah, hardly had any input to give during the sessions and refrained from questioning the officials about the misuse of national wealth, administrative wrongs and unwarranted use of government resources.

Department officials, on the other hand, come unprepared to the meetings and were unable to answer questions raised about the misuse of funds.

This inefficiency was also witnessed on Tuesday, when the officials of works and services department weren't able to give satisfactory answers to questions raised about financial irregularities.

Expressing dissatisfaction over the lack of interest by PPP members, PAC Chairman Ghulam Qadir Chandio notified the chief secretary about the absence of treasury department secretary from PAC meetings.

In the letter addressed to the chief secretary, he warned of taking disciplinary action against the secretary of treasury department if he fails to attend the next PAC meeting, adding that treasury secretary and other senior officials continue to stay away from PAC sessions despite the issuance of verbal orders.

The PAC, which works as government's watchdog against the misuse of funds and scrutinises financial dealings worth billions of rupees, does not include any members from the opposition.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 23^rd, 2019.