KARACHI, Dec 30: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has stressed the need for the activation of the Sindh Assembly Public Accounts Committee and said that in the absence of audit reports of accounts of government departments the bank would have difficulty in assisting Sindh and providing it loans.

This need was highlighted by an ADB delegation during its meeting with the chairman of the committee, Jam Tamachi, which was held at the assembly building here on Tuesday.

Mr Tamachi, who has already held two meetings with ADB officials after his appointment as chairman of the committee in the first week of December, has confirmed that he met the ADB team.

He said that the ADB team had asked him for activation of the accounts committee as there was a lot of backlog of work relating to accounts.

According to him, no audit of the Sindh government has been carried out for the past many years and the ADB team is of the view that if no audit is carried out, the bank think twice about extending financial assistance.

The ADB team asked for cooperation as there were many restrictions on its providing loans and financial assistance to any country which failed to audit its accounts, he said.

Recently, the ADB and Pakistan signed agreements for $300 million loans to support economic growth, reduce poverty, and improve health of women and infants in Balochistan, Sindh and Punjab areas.

Mr Tamachi said that in this amount, $100 million is for Sindh. It would be invested for improvement of public resource management and for boosting of investment in rural areas to reduce poverty and enhance economic opportunities.

Sindh would also receive technical assistance to the tune of $800,000 which would be used to conduct studies and to draw up programmes of public-private partnership to stimulate investment in much-needed infrastructure and social services in rural areas, he said.

Referring to his last two meetings with ADB officials, Mr Tamachi said that he already had issued letters followed by reminders to all secretaries of government departments to complete their diaries for audit.

The public accounts committees are formed to examine and ensure transparency in government financial matters.

The committee also examines balance sheets and statements along with the auditor-general’s report.