Escaping inspection: Planning Commission officials refuse to turn up again

Officials keep PIMC from inspecting ill-conceived projects that are causing annual losses of billions of rupees.

ISLAMABAD: Officials from the Planning Commission failed to appear before the Prime Minister’s Inspection Commission (PMIC) for the second consecutive time on Wednesday, in order to keep the PMIC from inspecting ill-conceived projects that are causing annual losses of billions of rupees.

Before submitting its monitoring report to the prime minister, the PMIC had asked the Planning Commission to brief them on these projects. The Planning Commission’s implementation and monitoring  wing is supposed to give these briefings from December 21 to 23. According to sources, the PMIC, which is headed by Malik Amjad Noon, has already physically inspected these projects and noticed serious problems with them.

Sources said that “certain elements” within the Planning Commission had misled its Deputy Chairperson Dr Nadeemul Haq, who was told that the PMIC had given them a notice of just four days to prepare for these briefings. However, official documents available with The Express Tribune show that Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani had directed the PMIC on July 21, 2010, to monitor selected projects of the Public Sector Development Programme in collaboration with the Planning Commission and the finance ministry. On August 5, Noon held a detailed meeting with a member of the Planning Commission’s implementation and monitoring wing Lt-Gen. (retd) Shahid Niaz. Noon then discussed the issue with Planning Secretary Ashraf Hayat and on September 2, the prime minister approved that these five projects be monitored.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 23^rd, 2010.