Lack of quorum delays PAC meeting

The lack of interest of the government and the opposition in the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), a constitutional forum set up for internal accountability of parliament, has come to the fore.

The meeting, chaired by Rana Tanveer, was delayed by more than half an hour. At the onset of the meeting, out of 29 members of the committee, only Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed, Syed Naveed Qamar and Sardar Ayaz Sadiq participated.

The chairman insisted on starting the meeting without a quorum but Naveed Qamar announced that he would not be a part of it if it was started without the quorum. He added that if they went ahead without the required numbers, it would give the government an excuse to run the assembly without a quorum.

Qamar said that there was no member of the government in the meeting, and asked for it to be started. Tanveer seconded this, saying that the rest might come.

Sadiq said that just like the government faces difficulty in filling the assembly for its operations, the opposition too was facing difficulty in reaching the quorum in the committee.

Half an hour later, the quorum was reached with the participation of government members Riaz Fatyana, Noor Alam Khan and Manza Hassan on Zoom.

After the meeting started formally, the committed discussed several audit paras and on some, it directed the Ministry of Science and Technology to meet with officials to review the situation.

The committee also directed the ministry to fill vacant posts of its subordinate departments and to devise ways to increase revenue.