Pakistan

Meeting deadlines: NADRA finally shares record of expenses

The move comes in the wake of a warning by the interior minister.

Our Correspondent October 23, 2013

A worker of the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) checks newly printed government identity cards of registered citizens at the NADRA head office in Islamabad November 14, 2012. PHOTO: REUTERS

LAHORE:

The National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) has finally shared its expenditure records with a commercial audit team that began examining the same before the deadline set by Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan ended, The Express Tribune has learnt.

On October 14, Chaudhry Nisar had instructed the NADRA chairman to ensure the start of the audit of the authority’s expenditure by the Auditor General of Pakistan within seven days, ie until October 21.

The audit team reached NADRA headquarters and were handed the relevant record of its expenditures, audit department officials told The Express Tribune.

Nisar had earlier warned that the heads of the institutions that do not comply would be removed from their respective posts.

During the financial year 2003-2004, the Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) had unearthed Rs2 billion in financial irregularities in NADRA.

The AGP had also submitted its report on irregularities in NADRA during 2003-2004 to the then president General Pervez Musharraf, the then prime minister Shaukat Aziz and the Public Accounts Committee, and the question of why NADRA did not provide its annual audit record to Auditor General was raised.

Similarly, in its report for 2012-2013, the AGP had observed that the management of NADRA at the Pakistan High Commission, London, refused to provide the auditable record to the audit team, violating rules and regulation.

Section 14(2) of the Auditor General’s Ordinance, 2001 states that the officer in-charge of any department shall afford all facilities and provide record for audit inspection and comply with requests for information in as complete a form as possible and with all reasonable expedition.

The AGP, in its report, says that Section 14(3) of the same ordinance states that any person or authority hindering the functions of the Auditor General regarding inspections of accounts shall be subject to disciplinary action under relevant efficiency and discipline rules.

Similarly, the National Crisis Management Cell (NCMC) also has still not provided the requisite record to the audit team of Directorate General of Audit, Auditor General Pakistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 23^rd, 2013.