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LAHORE, Dec 16: The Punjab Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee-II on Tuesday directed the home secretary to attend the next meeting of the committee on Wednesday to represent his department.
The committee, which is going through 176 audit paras regarding financial irregularities in the home department involving a sum of Rs540 million, decided to suspend its proceedings until home secretary Brig Ijaz Shah (retired) attended it, chairman Asif Saeed Manais told reporters here on Tuesday.
Committee members Tanveer Kaira, Shaikh Amjad Aziz and Pir Mukhtar Shah were also present on the occasion.
Taking up audit paras pertaining to the home department, the committee summoned the Gujranwala DIG for Wednesday to discuss with him Rs0.412 million unauthorized purchase for his office. It directed DIG Aftab Sultan to hold an inquiry afresh into the Rs2.3 million fraud case in the Gujranwala DPO office. In the earlier probe, accountant Ghulam Sarwar, since dead, had been held responsible for the fraud. The committee feared that as the late accountant had been made a scapegoat to cover up the crime committed by others.
The new probe body with complete its findings within 30 days as deputy director, audit, Rana Shehzad, deputy secretary of the home department and a representative of the finance department would be members of it.
The committee also directed the Gujranwala DIG to investigate that how a zero meter Toyota pick-up, costing Rs0.7 million, of the Sialkot DPO office was burnt reportedly in a public rally.
It observed that since the vehicle had been reported as zero meter, it should have been parked in the compound of the DPO office and not at the venue of any rally.
The PAC also directed the Sialkot DPO to recover Rs1.87 million within six weeks from the Sialkot tehsil municipal administration for hiring services of police guards. The AIG, finance, assured the committee that the amount would be recovered within the scheduled time.
It also directed the Faisalabad DPO to recover Rs2.455 million from the municipal corporation, Rs1.024 million from the Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation and Rs74,000 from the PTV for hiring services of police guards for various periods. The finance department was directed to deduct these amounts at source from the accounts of the departments concerned.
The PAC referred a case of Rs150 million irregularities in the Lahore DPO office to the NAB, while recommending termination of services of accountant Azizuddin Bajwa, cashier Nayyer Kamal, clerk Tariq Aziz, sub-inspectors Zulfikar Ali and Muhammad Sarwar, and ASI Ilam Din.
The accused had miscalculated the salaries of officials to draw extra amounts from the treasury while they had not got recorded in books usage of some of the amount they drew for various purposes.
ELITE FORCE: The PAC summoned the Elite Force DIG along with the relevant record to discuss financial irregularities involving a sum of around Rs10 million in 15 cases.
The DIG had refused to hand over the record to the home department, saying it was not authorized to go through it.
However, he yielded to provide the record to the PAC.
UET: The committee disapproved the attitude of University of Engineering and Technology vice-chancellor Lt-Gen Muhammad Akram (retired) who did not join the proceedings on Monday despite being called by the committee for the purpose.
Mr Akram tendered his apology which the chair accepted.
The UET was asked to recover Rs67,000 as outstanding dues from tenants of its shops. It also directed the recovery of Rs2.296 million as fee from students who did not pay their tuition fees for three years.
The committee, dissatisfied with the UET authorities’ reply that these students had been struck off six months after the admission, directed them to get audited their record to ascertain when the students had been ousted from the university.
On payment of Rs2.112 million to a Rawalpindi firm owned by a retired colonel for hiring extra security guards at a rate of Rs4,000 per guard per month, it smelled some favouritism in the deal. It observed that these guards could have been hired from Lahore at Rs2,800-3,000 per person.
The committee re-summoned the vice-chancellor along with the record on Wednesday to find if all formalities had been taken care of before awarding the contract.
It directed that this amount be recovered from the authorities, which had awarded the contract if it was found that rules and regulations concerned had been violated.
