18 April 2004	Sunday	27 Safar 1425

LAHORE, April 17: The Punjab Assembly's Public Accounts Committee-II on Saturday directed administrative secretaries of all the provincial departments to initiate monthly meetings for reviewing status of recovery of outstanding dues.

The committee, at a meeting presided over by Asif Saeed Manais, issued the direction while expressing dissatisfaction over the pace of recovery by the Board of Revenue.

It asked the BoR senior member to hold a monthly meeting of EDOs (revenue) to review the state of recovery and a strict compliance of the PAC orders when they appear before the body.

Taking note of the BoR authorities failure to recover Rs37.7 million from lawyers of various courts as Kutchery compound lease money, the committee recommended to the chief minister to either exempt the lawyers of the levy or suggest some way for the its recovery.

The committee observed that the amount could not be deducted from the grants given by the government. The lawyers community was of the view that when they sit on court's premises they become officers of court so they should be exempt from the levy.

It also sought help of the chief secretary and the Punjab Bar Council president for the recovery of the dues from lawyers of 31 courts.

Taking up use of telephone calls over and above their quotas by 26 commissioners, ADCGs, deputy commissioners and assistant commissioners to the tune of Rs2.527 million, the committee gave two months to the department to either justify its stance that the phone calls limits had been crossed under official needs or recover the amount from the officers concerned.

Reviewing its directions issued in the last meeting to the BoR, the committee sought recovery of Rs435,000 from a former head clerk of the Faisalabad deputy commissioner's office and registration of a criminal case against him.

A departmental inquiry, initiated on a PAC direction, had found Javed Iqbal guilty of the misappropriation of the money and had dismissed him from job.

The committee was told that a sum of Rs69.10 million had been recovered as water rate from defaulters of 43 tehsils. However, some dues were yet outstanding in certain areas.