You can buy ‘only sugar’ from Utility Stores

Condition to buy other items along with sweetener dropped

ISLAMABAD:

The condition to buy other groceries along with sugar from Utility Stores has been dropped.

A meeting of the Public Accounts Committee of the National Assembly, chaired by Rana Tanveer Hussain, reviewed the audit paras of the Utility Store Corporation.

The panel examined the appropriation of accounts for the year 2018-19 and audit report for the year 2019-20.

The audit officials told the participants of the meeting that around an amount of Rs680 million was lost to corruption in the corporation from 2015 to 2020.

They added that over a sum of Rs150 million was embezzled in 30 of the 64 regions of the stores.

Only six employees of the stores had alone embezzled Rs21 million, of which Rs7 million has been recovered.

USC Managing Director Umer Lodhi informed the participants that cases were pending in the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) against these employees.

He added that a computer system for data recording will also be installed by the end of June.

“The USC will implement enterprise resource planning [ERP] system in July to further strengthen the internal control of the department,” the managing director said.

“The FIA is investigating 96 cases of utility stores.”

The committee head expressed his frustration with the FIA and the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) over the slow pace of inquiry into corruption cases.

The PAC chief observed that the FIA pretended it was on the sugar case instead of actually working.

“Politicians are accused of corruption but no notice is taken on the waste of money in government institutions,” he added.

“We will hold a separate special meeting on the issue of Utility Stores.”

The PAC chairman also expressed his displeasure over the condition imposed on customers to buy other items along with sugar from Utility Stores.

“People don't even have money to buy sugar, you are selling a shampoo along with it?” he asked the USC chief.

“Why do you force people to buy something they don't need?” he added. “Next time when somebody comes to a Utility Store to buy sugar, don't tell them to buy something else too.”

The USC MD assured the committee that the requirement to buy other items along with sugar from Utility Stores had been dropped.

Besides the chairman, members of the committee including MNAs Raja Pervez Ashraf, Raja Riaz Ahmed, Noor Alam Khan, Khawaja Sheraz Mehmood, Muhammad Ibrahim, Munaza Hassan, Sheikh Rohail Asghar, Shahida Akhtar Ali and senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed attended the meeting. 

(With input from APP)