Parliamentary watchdog: PAC poised to return with JUI-F man at the helm

Maulana Attaur Rehman, suitable to head the body.

ISLAMABAD:

For the first time in months, there is some movement around the parliament’s top accountability body.

Since the departure of the Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan from chairmanship of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) in November last year, the body has come to a standstill.  The halting of the PAC came at a critical time. The watchdog was about to begin scrutiny of the current governments account. This would have been the first time that the incumbent rulers’ accounts were brought before the PAC.

According to sources, there is a new contender for the slot vacated by the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) leader – Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F). Maulana Attaur Rehman, the brother of Maulana Fazl, is considered the most ‘suitable’ candidate to head the body, sources have told The Express Tribune. Some circles in the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) have also supported the idea.

Although JUI-F is technically an opposition party, Maulana Fazl is still the chairperson of the Parliamentary Committee on Kashmir. One of his close colleagues, Maulana Mohammad Khan Sherani, also heads the Council of Islamic Ideology.

Nisar was appointed the PAC chairman under the Charter of Democracy that was signed between the PPP and PML-N before the 2008 general elections.

While announcing his resignation, the opposition leader had said that his party, the PML-N, will not accept the office in future. For the first time in the country’s history, the PAC was poised to examine the accounts and financial matters of the sitting government reported by the auditor-general of Pakistan’s annual report but the process came to a stand-still following Nisar’s resignation.

Auditor-general calls for institutional independence

Meanwhile, the auditor-general of Pakistan has asked the federal government for an amendment in the Constitution to ensure his office total institutional independence, official sources said.

A draft of the proposed constitutional amendment has been forwarded to the government by Auditor-General Akhtar Buland Rana.

Interestingly, the appointment of Rana, a highly controversial official, as the auditor-general by the prime minister, was a major reason for Nisar’s resignation.

At present, the auditor-general is a subordinate organisation of the ministry of finance, and is entrusted with the task of auditing the financial affairs of the ministry and other official departments.

The entire functioning of the PAC is based on the annual reports prepared by the auditor-general. However, it is interesting to note that, unlike India, the auditor-general’s office is not allowed to release its annual reports to the media or make it public through the internet.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 11^th, 2012.