Provincial watchdog : SALU officials speechless over ‘irregular’ expenditures

The PAC members was irked that the varsity's officials had failed to respond to their queries.

KARACHI: The chairperson of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the Sindh Assembly, Saleem Raza Jalbani, has decided to approach the chief minister to seek more powers for the provincial watchdog. He made the remark after officials of the Shah Abdul Latif University, Khairpur, failed to justify anomalies worth Rs44 million in the varsity's accounts.

"We have limited authority to deal with the corrupt bureaucratic culture," remarked Jalbani. "We can only write to the chief minister, chief secretary and Governor, pinpointing the irregularities in the accounts."



The absence of the varsity's vice-chancellor also irked the members of the PAC, who chided the university's officials for not taking the highest forum of the provincial assembly seriously.

"We have given you enough time to justify the irregularities and produce the records against expenditure over the last five years," he said, questioning why the VC had not shown up for the meeting. "You people did not even bother to respond to our queries."

The varsity's pro-vice chancellor, Miandad Zardari, replied that the VC had gone aboard a few days ago and they had not had a chance to complete the task. The audit department's director-general, Ghulam Akbar Sohu, intervened at this, pointing out that the issue was five years old.

"These are five-year-old audit paras that have shown massive irregularities," he said. "Given the chance, I can verify the paras within one hour. Why are you making lame excuse if you have done nothing wrong?" he asked the university officials. The pro-vice chancellors and other officials repeatedly requested the PAC members to grant them a week's time to settle the paras.

DG Sohu revealed that the varsity's officials had not even given them working papers and verified the audit concerns expressed by auditors in 2009-2010. "During the audit, we found that the officials had purchased machinery and utilised the funds without inviting tenders," he said. "They have shown excessive medical allowance allotted to non-gazetted officers. The advance amount paid to employees is yet to be recovered even after the passage of many years."

Presenting the list of irregular expenditure, he said that Rs24,000,000 had been shown to purchase generators, Rs5,928,000 given for medical allowance to those employees who were not entitled for it, Rs805,300 had been given as advance salaries and Rs13,518,000 had been given as medical allowance to non-gazetted employees. He said that the university administration had yet to explain why they had paid Rs7,282,434 worth of electricity and gas bills which belonged to the university's residential colony.

Addressing the media after the meeting, Jalbani asserted that the PAC will not let the officials squander public money. "I will not succumb to any pressure," he said.

PAC members, Nand Kumar of the Pakistan Muslim League - Functional and Ponjo Bheel of Muttahida Qaumi Movement, said that they will register complaints with the chief minister, who now heads the universities in the province, against the negligent attitude of officials who mismanage millions of rupees and don't bother to respond to the PAC's queries.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 28^th, 2014.