May 31, 2006	Wednesday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 3, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, May 30: The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has directed the ministries of finance and housing and works to reevaluate hiring rules, enabling public servants to hire accommodation as per their requirements in an easy and transparent way.

The existing rules have many loopholes due to which large scale irregularities have been detected in Islamabad.

The issue was taken up by a subcommittee of the PAC here on Tuesday while discussing irregularities amounting to Rs1.192 million committed by the office of director general of Pakistan Post Offices, Islamabad, in payment of rents of requisitioned houses during 1990-91. The Pakistan Post had constituted its own assessment board for hiring without consulting the Finance Division.

“Either the ministry of finance should abolish its hiring rules and allow each and every ministry to form its own hiring rules or it should amend its rules in consultation with the stakeholders,” PML-N MNA Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said.

Mr Khan, a member of the PAC, said he did not differ with the subcommittee which had settled the audit para related to irregularities in payments of rents in the Pakistan Post.

“But the ministry of finance must ensure that such cases are not repeated in future again”. He said he was well aware that public servants were facing a lot of problems in hiring decent accommodation but it did not mean that rules be violated.

POST OFFICE FOUNDATION: The subcommittee also directed the finance ministry to jointly take up all cases of irregularities and embezzlements committed in various foundations working as charitable organisations to save time.

While discussing irregularities allegedly committed by postmaster general, southern Punjab, Lahore, Naseeruddin Shaikh (late) in 1988-89 in the purchase of office furniture worth Rs878,225 from the Post Office Foundation, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said: “Like the Post Office Foundation, there are hundreds of other charitable organisations which are eating away public money. These foundations are a big fraud”.

Officials of the finance ministry informed the sub-committee that the Post Office Foundation had allegedly committed irregularities running into billions of rupees in the purchase of various items including uniforms, cloths, post office bags and printing of stamps since 1991. In fact, the foundation had been converted into a “general order supplier”, the officials added.

The finance ministry requested to the subcommittee to hold the foundation accountable now, otherwise it would be too late to recover the public money.

NHA: A man who was holding a fake BA degree but a strong political background has been serving in the National Highway Authority (NHA) for the past 24 years and currently was director revenue (BPS-19), the sub-committee of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) was informed, here on Tuesday.

He got off the hook twice — first by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and then by the Federal Ombudsman. They were of the view that the official was not responsible for the fraud but those NHA officials who appointed him despite knowing that he possessed a bogus degree.

“When I came to the NHA, the official was serving in BPS-18 and hence I was not able to take any action against him because he was doing his job well,” NHA Chairman Maj-Gen Farrukh Javed, told the meeting, presided over by MNA Kanwar Khalid Younas.

The sub-committee was informed that the officer was appointed in BPS-17 on Dec 8, 1981 in the office of Director General, NHA, Islamabad. The post required minimum qualification of graduation, however, the degree of the appointed official was disowned by the university of Balochistan.

According to the rules, his service could be terminated immediately. But due to strong backing from a political family of Balochistan, the federal ombudsman did not terminate the official, rather he was kept in service and was asked to appear in the university examination again to have a fresh degree to meet the job requirement.

Even for the second time, the official secured a bogus degree from Balochistan university.

It was said that the official was paid Rs297,300 from December 1981 to November 1990, when the FIA started investigation into the matter.

The sub-committee did not know what to do with the official — to terminate him or to recover the money paid to him till he came up with the second degree. It observed that it was impossible to reach to those NHA officials who appointed the man with the fake degree.