Delayed Metro Bus audit under review

Rs44.84b project audit issues revisited; 10-year delay blamed on inactive PAC

RAWALPINDI:

Fifty-seven pending audit paras concerning the construction of the Metro Bus project linking the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad will be presented before the Punjab Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on March 19.

The Metro Bus project comprises a 10-kilometre elevated corridor in Rawalpindi and a 12.5-kilometre ground-level route in Islamabad, with a total length of 22.5 kilometres.

Construction was completed within 13 months, and the project was formally inaugurated on June 4, 2015 by the then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The scheme cost Rs44.84 billion in total.

The audit forum that examined the project initially raised more than 250 audit paras. However, many of them were later clubbed together due to similarities in nature, while others deemed untenable were dropped.

The remaining 57 audit paras, which are largely procedural in nature, had been kept pending for several years due to the absence of a functioning forum of the PAC. These remaining paras are now scheduled to be taken up at the meeting of the Punjab Public Accounts Committee in Lahore on March 19, where a decision regarding their disposal will be made.

Meanwhile, sources within the Rawalpindi Development Authority, the executing agency for the Rawalpindi-Islamabad Metro Bus project, say the outstanding audit paras are merely procedural and are expected to be settled during the committee's proceedings.

The ten-year delay in addressing them, they added, was primarily due to the non-availability of the Public Accounts Committee forum.