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| June 1, 2006 | Thursday | Jumadi-ul-Awwal 4, 1427 |
Details from ministry of defence sought: Retention of funds
ISLAMABAD, May 31: The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) here on Wednesday directed the defence ministry to provide by the end of August complete details about the spending of Rs36 million awarded for the construction of low-cost houses for the widows and orphans of defence forces personnel in 1988-90.
The audit department has alleged that the funds were not spent on the construction of low-cost houses but were drawn at the end of financial year to avoid lapse, which violated the provisions of the constitution and the financial regulations.
Ruling party MNA Riaz Fatyana, who presided over a meeting of the subcommittee of PAC here at the Parliament House, observed that: “We don’t know whether the money was spent on the construction of low-cost houses. Whether there are any houses at all. We need all information about the bank cheques issued in this regard and also the number of houses built so far.”
The subcommittee said there was nothing wrong in the construction of houses for the families of those killed or disabled in wars, but the question was that as to why rules were violated in spending the money.
Despite frequent explanations by the defence ministry official that rules were violated in “good faith”, the subcommittee refused to settle the audit para and deferred it.
“Good faith” seems to have become the scapegoat for embezzlements being committed in various departments. The PAC has already let three retired generals off the hook in the $98million Chinese locomotives scam by saying that the deal was struck in “good faith”.
The audit department had observed that it had pointed out the matter in September 1991. A year later, it got a reply from the Services Headquarters that the cases had been referred to the government for obtaining sanction for retention of unspent funds beyond the financial year concerned. But the reply was not tenable as the government could not allow retention of unspent amount of one financial year in the next financial year as it was a violation of the constitutional provisions.
“The unspent amount had to be surrendered to the government at the close of financial year 1989-90 or 1990-91. But the rules were not followed,” the audit department observed.
The defence ministry said that though the procedure was violated, money was not embezzled. “Violation of the procedure was committed because this was the only way to retain money for execution of the job.”
GOLF CLUB: The subcommittee also directed the Air Headquarters (unit) at Islamabad to regularise through proper channel the Rs284,990 it had spent from the public money for maintenance of their private golf club.
The audit department had contended that public money was spent during 1992-94 on maintenance of the club which also had private members besides the three armed forces and hence it was a violation of the rules.
“The golf club offers the officers of the three armed forces an opportunity to develop relations with the private members mostly hailing from civil bureaucracy. These meetings are good to enable both the civil and military bureaucracy to run the affairs of the country efficiently”, said the principal accounting officer (PAO) of the defence ministry.
Riaz Fatyana said instead of golf clubs, the armed forces should develop gyms and get used to hard physical exercises to remain fit.
“Army officers with bellies don’t look good in uniform. You need these facilities but you must also follow the rules and procedures whenever you utilise public money on these facilities,” he added.
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