Rs700m NA renovation work raises eyebrows in PAC

Panel summons Foreign Ministry, NA, CDA officials for briefing

ISLAMABAD:

Amid reports that the National Assembly Hall may not be ready for tabling an early no-trust motion against Prime Minister Imran Khan, it emerged on Thursday before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that the wooden desks & doors were being replaced with chipboard, leather with rexine and carpeted floors with “third-class tiles” in the name of renovation of the lower house.

To add insult to injury, PAC was told that the National Assembly and its lobbies were being renovated – or as PML-N’s Khawaja Asif put it: being deprived of its historic touch and cultural heritage – with an estimated cost of Rs700 million, just ahead of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) summit meeting to be held on March 22.

Subsequently, PAC ordered the secretaries of the National Assembly and the Foreign Ministry as well as the chairman of the Capital Development Authority (CDA) to apprise PAC about the renovation work and why historical furniture and stuff was simply replaced when it should have preferably been preserved.

“Is the renovation work being carried out for the conference or to halt no-confidence motion,” PML-N’s Mushahid Hussain Sayed quipped, amid intense speculations that the opposition was all set to table a no-trust motion in the assembly against the prime minister or the NA Speaker Asad Qaiser.

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Because of the renovation work, it is being stated that the opposition would not be able to find the space to move its no-trust motion unless the work was complete or the venue was changed.

Asif, while regretting that the historical furniture and other things were being replaced with artificial things, conjectured who might know how much of Rs700 million was being embezzled. “Why are you replacing wood with chipboard, leather seats with rexine and carpeted floors with third-class tiles,” he said, while lamenting that all the roughly three-decade old wooden furniture needed was polish.

Other committee members also said that the House of Commons in England was hundreds of years old yet special attention was still being paid to preserve its historical furniture, decorative arts collection and the building itself.

The members were of the opinion that emotional, cultural and historical value of such places increased with the passage of time and the architecture stayed tall and continued to be a witness to the history in the making.

“Parliamentarians come and go but the [National Assembly] building is a symbol of democracy,” Science and Technology Minister Shibli Faraz said after the meeting, adding that parliaments all over the world preserve their history and restore their architecture instead of uprooting it and replacing it with new things.

“There should be a list identifying that such and such item should not be touched,” Faraz said, adding that the rest of the things could be renovated. “There should be some exceptions,” the minister said.

PAC members envisaged that the audit could only be done after the financial year was completed but the relevant officials could brief the committee about the on-going project. Subsequently, PAC Chairman Rana Tanveer Hussain directed the officials concerned to apprise the committee about the project.

The issue of renovation had surfaced when PAC was examining the audit paras of the Ministry of Housing and Works. During the meeting, the secretary and the director general of the PWD drew ire of the PAC chairman, when they made different statements on the same issue.

The chairman then expressed displeasure and directed the secretary to complete the inquiry on the issue of excess payment of Rs1,111,976 million. Tanveer lamented that discussion on the audit paras was eliciting similar replies instead of leading to meaningful discussion. The complete did not complete the examination of the audit paras and the meeting was adjourned.