March 26, 2006	Sunday	Safar 25, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, March 25: The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the National Assembly on Saturday took serious notice of over Rs42 million irregularities committed by officials of the Ministry of Kashmir Affairs and Northern Areas (KANA) in connivance with contractors, and called for early recovery of the embezzled amount.

Reviewing the audit paras of the ministry for the year 2000-01, the PAC members also expressed displeasure over the non-cooperative attitude of the senior ministry officials with them as well as with the audit officers.

The PAC members regretted that it had come to their knowledge that some corrupt officials of the ministry were being protected by their seniors. They called for blacklisting all those contractors who got huge contracts after bribing the Kana officials.

Chief Secretary of Northern Areas Imtiaz Hussain Qazi reluctantly gave the names of some of the alleged corrupt officials and contractors after he was grilled by the committee members.

Auditor General Younis Khan complained about the non- cooperative attitude of the officials of all the ministries with the audit officers.

The PAC meeting, presided over by its chairman Malik Allahyar Khan, reviewed various audit paras submitted by the auditor general regarding irregularities by various departments under the Kana ministry.

The PAC was informed that the water and power division, Gilgit, made a payment of Rs63.308 million against reduced agreement amount of Rs54.498 million for ductile pipes. The audit department observed that an overpayment of Rs8.81 million had to be made due to violation of the contract by the contractor. It called for an inquiry into the matter to find those responsible for this loss to the national exchequer. It also directed the ministry to submit a compliance report by April 30.

The PAC members also took notice of the non-recovery of dues from contractors by the building and road division, Ghizar district, the water and power division, Skardu District; the building and road divisions of Diamer and Astore districts. The committee members said the contractors should be blacklisted and dues should be recovered from them.

In two different instances, the water and power division, Gilgit, could not recover Rs5.80 million and Rs4.418 million from the contractors. The audit brief revealed that the building and road division, Astore, made full payment to a contractor despite the fact that the work was completed later by another contractor. The project was awarded to the new contractor without full recovery from the previous contractor.

The building and road division, Gilgit, also failed to recover room rent of its main rest house from various persons/government officials and telephone bills of the Northern Areas House in Islamabad, causing a loss of Rs1.448 million.

The audit report pointed out that hydel power station, Gorikote, could not start functioning due to “ill-planning” by the officials of the building and road division, Astore. The ill-planning caused wasteful expenditure of Rs5.461 million.

The audit report disclosed that a bus of the Northern Areas Transport Corporation (NATC) was handed over to the Northern Areas police to provide pick-and-drop service for the school- going kids of police officers. However, the police department did not pay the rent of the bus, which was agreed to at a rate of Rs2,500 per day.