Ex-prime minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf. PHOTO: FILE
A ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz lawmaker has brought the issue of the alleged misuse of public funds by former prime minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), putting the committee chairman’s impartiality to the test for the first time.
The alleged embezzlement of funds in 13 small schemes in NA-51 (Rawalpindi-II) by Ashraf was raised by PML-N MNA and PAC member Raja Javed Ikhlas in the committee meeting on Wednesday. Ikhlas defeated Ashraf for the NA-51 seat in the May 2013 elections.
Distributing the list of the schemes among the committee members, Ikhlas urged PAC Chairman Khursheed Shah – a veteran Pakistan Peoples Party politician – to refer the matter to the auditor general for further investigations.
“The use of Rs47 billion in development funds must be probed,” said Ikhlas. Former premier Ashraf had used his discretionary powers to allocate Rs47 billion for development schemes, most of which were carried out in his constituency.
According to Ikhlas, of the Rs294.4 million allocated against 13 small schemes, Rs140.5 million were siphoned off. In one case, almost two-thirds of the allocated funds were allegedly embezzled, the documents he distributed among the PAC members stated.
Ikhlas called for a probe into the funds spent in the constituencies of other parliamentarians as well.
PML-N’s Rana Afzaal Hussain also urged the PAC chairman to refer the pending audit objections to subcommittees and instead focus on bigger cases. Currently, the committee is discussing audit objections made during the tenure of the second PML-N government in 1998-1999.
Responding to the request in an in-camera meeting held after the regular PAC meeting, the PAC chairman decided to hand over the past audit objections to subcommittees. The committee will only discuss audit objections from 2010 onwards.
Shafqat Mahmood of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf will chair the subcommittee which will discuss audit objections raised during the second PML-N government. There are 2,600 pending audit objections for the period of 1998-99, said Khursheed Shah.
The second subcommittee will clear the backlog of objections made during the Pervez Musharraf regime and will be chaired by Syed Naveed Qamar of the PPP. These amount to 2,300.
The third subcommittee will be headed by Sardar Ashiq Husain Gopang of the PML-N and will discuss 1,900 audit objections made during the first two years of the PPP government.
Shah said the subcommittees will clear the backlog within one year.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 16th, 2014.
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