Punjab

Delineating authority: Treasury office responsible for development payments

Working group’s proposals to be presented before CM in four weeks.

Anwer Sumra December 17, 2014

LAHORE: The government withdrew the payment functions for all development works from the office of the accountant general on Wednesday and entrusted the treasury office with the responsibility with immediate effect.

A notification issued by the Finance Department said a seven-member working group had been constituted under the supervision of the finance special secretary to formulate suggestions regarding the transformation of the treasury office in the city into a dedicated district accounts office. A member of the group told The Express Tribune that the proposals would be presented to Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif in four weeks.

District account offices province-wide and a treasury office in Lahore were set up under the Punjab Local Government Ordinance 2001. The office of the accountant general had been entrusted with the responsibility of running the office in Lahore. The office of the accountant general had been making payments for all development works being carried out by the works and services EDO and the local government assistant director

The official said the Finance Department had withdrawn the responsibility from the office of the accountant general and had entrusted the treasury office with the task in a letter on the advice of the Law and Parliamentary Affairs Department and the advocate general.

The working group has been directed to review aspects related to the district accounts office’s upgrade under the legal opinions tendered by the attorney general, the advocate general and the Law Department regarding the accounting and treasury functions of the city government and provincial departments. The working group was also directed to examine the office’s organisational capability and suggest modifications to the existing regulatory mechanism or finalise proposals regarding the establishment of new institutional frameworks to govern the treasury and accounting functions of the city government and provincial departments. An official of the Finance Department said this was a significant development. He said as functions entrusted to provinces under the 18th Amendment to the Constitution were being assigned to provincial departments.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 18^th, 2014.