January 14, 2009	Wednesday	Muharram 16, 1430

KARACHI, Jan 13: The Public Accounts Committee of the Sindh Assembly grilled on Tuesday the provincial secretary and other officials of the irrigation and power department for failing to bring evidence and proof in defence of various irregularities in expenditures.

The PAC meeting, which was presided over by its chairman Jam Tamachi, considered the audited accounts of the irrigation and power department. It was the second meeting of the PAC which was held at the committee room of the Sindh Assembly.

The committee asked the secretary and other officials to submit evidence and proof in defence of the expenditures incurred on different projects without inviting tenders despite the fact that it was obligatory to call tenders on a work involving an amount of Rs100,000 or above.

It also took notice of the non-recovery of water and power dues which had been outstanding against various departments and residential colonies and asked the officials to submit the proof of correspondence, if any, with such departments. It also asked whether the department raised this matter with the finance department for at source deduction of the government dues or brought it to the knowledge of the chief minister.

The PAC meeting covered all paras written by the auditors pointing out irregularities in the expenditures including the use of the public money without prior sanction.

The secretary of irrigation and power department requested the committee to give six months for furnishing the record and evidence in support of the controversial expenditure. However, the committee gave him two-months and fixed March 13 as the next date of the meeting on the subject issue.

Meanwhile, the PAC chairman, Jam Tamachi, told Dawn that he had asked the secretary of the department to submit a list of officials responsible for discrepancies in the accounts and whether they were issued a show-cause notice.

He regretted that in the absence of a proper accountability process, it had become a trend among most of the officials to spend public money without the prior approval of the competent authority.