Senate question hour: PSM audit unearths Rs8b worth of irregularities

Responsibility affixed only in one case, production minister tells Senate.

ISLAMABAD:

Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) has inflicted a Rs8.151 billion loss to the national exchequer between 2008 and 2011, the Senate was informed during question hour on Wednesday.

A commercial audit report detected at least six cases of irregularities and misappropriation from 2008-09 to 2010-11. However, apart from a single officer, no official of the mills was found responsible for the embezzlement, Federal Minister for Production Anwar Ali Cheema informed the upper house through his written reply.

The audit report of the PSM during last five years revealed that at least four cases of misappropriation and irregularities worth Rs356 million were detected in 2008-09 and only one person was found guilty. Two cases of irregularities worth Rs7.8 billion were detected in 2009-10, but no one was held responsible. A case of embezzlement worth Rs4.0 million was pointed out in the 2010-11 and again no one was held responsible.

The minister further informed senators that PSM accounts for the year 2011-12 are under audit.

Meanwhile, Minister for Commerce Makhdoom Amin Fahim gave the value of two way trade with India during 2008-12 in a written reply. He said that during 2011-12, the value of exports to India remained Rs30.29 billion and the value of imports from India was Rs 134.738 billion. In 2010-11 Pakistan sold Rs22.6 billion worth of goods to India and bought Rs149 billion worth of items from the neighbour. In the 2009-10 the country’s exports to India stood at Rs 22.489 billion and imports remained at Rs102.872 billion. In 2008-009 the value of exports to India remained Rs24.350 billion while import from India remained Rs 93.471 billion.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 7^th, 2013.