Outstanding arrears: PAC directs govt to recover Rs2.6m from ex-minister

Former commerce minister Humayun Akhtar borrowed amount as travel allowances during General Musharraf’s era.

ISLAMABAD:

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has directed the federal government to send notices to a senior leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-Likeminded, Humayun Akhtar, and two former federal secretaries for recovering around Rs4.6 million in travel allowances that they obtained, but were never recovered.

The Parliament’s accountability body issued the directions after federal auditors revealed that Akhtar, a former commerce minister during General (retd) Pervez Musharraf’s era and two former secretaries including Tasneem Noorani, were among defaulters on account of travel and daily allowances. The advances were paid out of the Export Marketing Development Fund (EMDF) – a pool maintained for promoting exports.

Akhtar, who is Secretary General of the Likeminded group, may be disqualified from contesting the upcoming general elections due to the outstanding arrears. A commerce ministry official told the PAC that Akhtar owes Rs2.6 million, while Rs1.98 million was outstanding against Noorani and the other federal secretary.

Akhtar obtained the advances while travelling to Europe, the US and other Asian countries in his capacity as Pakistan’s commerce minister. This is the second time that Akhtar’s past actions were taken up by the PAC.

Earlier, the committee had ordered the recovery of roughly Rs1 million from him on account of payments beyond the permissible limits of cell phone bills. The commerce ministry official said that the advances were issued on the orders of the commerce minister’s office.



“In this country, Zarai Tarqayati Bank confiscates the land of a poor farmer for defaulting on a loan as small as Rs100,000, but influential people remain untouched irrespective of the serious nature of their irregularities,” observed PAC Chairman, Nadeem Afzal Chan.

Acting Auditor General of Pakistan, Tanveer Ahmad echoed Chan’s words, saying that “this is a very serious irregularity and the ministry sanctioned new advances to the former minister before adjusting previous ones.”

According to Director General Federal Audit Dr Asif, the commerce ministry was not maintaining a register for paying out advances, thus millions of rupees worth of advances were outstanding against many officials. He claimed the commerce ministry was illegally using the export development fund.

Despite repeated inquires, the commerce secretary did not disclose the names of the entourage members of the former commerce minister.

While terming the handling of advances “clumsy”, the PAC ordered the ministry to also table a report on the issue.

In yet another case highlighting lax governance, the commerce ministry was applying the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP) Ordinance while sanctioning funds of the EDMF, despite the lapse of the ordinance.

Dr Asif said that in the absence of any legal cover, the status of the ordinance was an attached department of the ministry and the rules framed under the lapsed ordinance could not be applied.

The TDAP Ordinance was among those laws which were struck down by the Supreme Court decision on the actions taken by Musharraf when he imposed emergency in November 2007.

The ordinance has already been approved by the National Assembly and is currently under scrutiny by a Senate panel.

Commerce Secretary Munir Qureshi maintained that it carries a clause that will provide cover to all actions taken during the interim period. However, PAC’s legal wizard Zahid Hamid of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz opposed the clause and said that past irregularities could not be overlooked through a new piece of legislation.

The PAC asked Qureshi to seek legal opinion of the law ministry to resolve the issue.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 24^th, 2013.