December 18, 2008	Thursday	Zilhaj 19, 1429

ISLAMABAD, Dec 17: The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Tuesday directed the foreign office to settle Rs130 million irregularities detected during the audit of its accounts for the year 2005-06.

The PAC asked the foreign secretary to furnish a comprehensive compliance report within two months otherwise the committee had the right to take punitive action against the responsible officials.

The PAC meeting held at the Parliament house with Choudhary Nisar Ali in the chair.

Taking strict action on one such irregularity, the PAC has summoned a former ambassador, head of chancery and four junior officials of Pakistan embassy in Spain for a personal hearing.

The auditors had pointed out that four junior officials of the embassy, who traveled from Madrid to Barcelona for official commitment, drew 2,297 euros in the form of daily allowance in total violation of the prescribed rules.

Hassan Sarmad and Shafqat Cheema were ambassador and head of chancery respectively at the Pakistani embassy at that time. “The committee wants to know how such an irregularity happened when there are certain rules,” Chaudhary Nisar said, adding, a precedent would be set out of this incident that people would not repeat such actions again.

According to government rules, if an official of the foreign office traveled back to the country even for an official commitment, he/she is not allowed to draw entrainment allowance, although they can claim the allowance during their postings abroad.

In one such incident, a senior official of the foreign office who was posted at Berne came to Pakistan for Nipa course drew $5,386 as entertainment allowance. When asked for explanation, Foreign Secretary, Salman Bashir, explained that they have informed the official about the irregularity and they were in the process of recovering the amount.

The auditors in their reports said record of Rs20 million spent on buying furniture was also missing.

Another issue of irregular withdrawal of money by a former non-career ambassador came under discussion during the meeting. Syed Pervaiz Hussain, former ambassador to South Korea, got $7,000 released against the rules. Foreign Secretary informed the committee they have received most of the money from the ex-ambassador, on which Chairman PAC asked the auditor general, Tanvir Ali Agha, to verify if he had paid the money back to the national kitty.

The committee directed the foreign office to sit down with the audit officials and reconcile their accounts and recovered the misappropriated amount otherwise the committee would be left with no choice but to take punitive measures against the responsible.

“I am going to see the prime minister within a couple of days, and will discuss if the government can issue strict guidelines for such violations of prescribed rules”, Choudhary Nisar said.