Laying blame: Provincial watchdog defers meeting for lack of quorum

Opposition member claims public accounts committee working as PPP's political office

KARACHI: The public accounts committee (PAC) of the Sindh Assembly met after a long break on Tuesday, but postponed its meeting after an opposition MPA protested over the lack of quorum.

The meeting, which was supposed to discuss irregularities of Rs12 billion in the local government department, concluded just ten minutes after it began. "How can I sit [in the meeting] when the quorum is incomplete?" questioned Pakistan Muslim League - Functional MPA Nand Kumar. "There are only two members out of a total seven. As per rules, three members of the provincial watchdog should be present. You are wasting time and public money," he said, before leaving the meeting that was being held at the committee room of Sindh Assembly on Tuesday.

"The PAC is now working as a political office of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), giving zero output. These irregularities have occurred in various provincial government departments in the last PPP government, which is why the chairperson always settles these paras," said Kumar, while addressing reporters outside the Sindh Assembly.

Kumar claimed the PPP was violating the charter of democracy signed by Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, which said: "We will appoint the opposition leaders in the national and provincial assemblies as the respective chairpersons of the PAC." He said the PPP had got the slot in the National Assembly, but was refusing to implement the same in Sindh.

Kumar, who happens to be the parliamentary leader of his party in the Sindh Assembly, further said: "During the PAC meeting, the chairperson forms sub-committees to investigate the allegations against officials, but he does not include opposition members in these committees."

For his part, the PAC chairperson, Saleem Raza Jalbani, said that the audit paras were settled with the consensus of all the members belonging to the opposition and the treasury benches.  "We have recovered millions of rupees from various departments and have written to the chief minister and chief secretary to take action against officials involved in the irregularities. The allegations leveled by Nand Kumar are untrue."

Earlier, as the meeting started, Jalbani announced to take up the audit paras of the local government department for the fiscal year 2008-2009.  Officials of the audit department read the first para pertaining to irregularities worth Rs5,843 million in the Lyari Development Authority and the Sehwan Development Authority. "In these two offices of the local government department, dues are outstanding against various allottees, but were not recovered. "As the local government secretary, Imran Atta Soomro, attempted to respond and brief the meeting on the irregularities, the issue of quorum was raised by the opposition member, which compelled the chairperson to postpone the meeting.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 10^th, 2015.