ISLAMABAD: After months of foot-dragging, the Ministry of Defence has finally constituted a court of inquiry to proceed against three retired army generals who have been found involved in mismanaging the funds of National Logistics Cell (NLC) from 2004 to 2008 which cost the military-run organisation a staggering loss of Rs1.8 billion.
“It is a proud moment for the Public Accounts Committee that on its recommendation the defence ministry, for the first time in the country’s history, has agreed to set up a full court of inquiry against three former military generals,” PAC Chairman Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said.
However, he lamented that Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, in total contrast, had extended the service of a civilian who was also involved in the NLC fiasco. The decision dealt a severe blow to the supremacy of parliamentary monitoring of government departments, Chaudhry Nisar said at a meeting of the committee held at the Parliament House on Friday to approve the printing of seven PAC reports of previous years.
He recalled that in March this year when the PAC was about to make its final recommendations on the NLC case, the army chief had approached it and sought some time to look into the issue himself because it involved three senior army officials.
Chaudhry Nisar said the committee had waited for the army’s response till June, but it was not received. And eventually on July 1 the PAC recommended disciplinary actions against all those found involved in the fiasco.
“Only last week, the defence secretary informed me that a court of inquiry had been set up to proceed against the three generals,” Chaudhry Nisar said.
He praised Defence Secretary Lt-Gen (retd) Syed Athar Ali and Chief of the Army Staff Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani for taking the historical step.
According to facts presented before the PAC, bosses of the NLC had made heavy investments in the stock exchange between 2004 and 2008 in violation of government rules. Besides borrowing money from commercial banks at high mark-up rates, they also used pensioners’ money for the business.
In return, heavy commissions were received from companies through which the investment of over Rs4 billion had been made in the stock market. The NCL suffered a loss of nearly Rs1.8 billion.
Lt-Gen (retd) Khalid Munir Khan (officer-in-charge of NLC from Jan to June 2005), Lt-Gen (retd) Mohammad Afzal Muzaffar (officer-in-charge from June 2005 to Oct 2008) and Maj-Gen (retd) Khalid Zaheer Akhtar (director general from July 2002 to Jan 2008) were at the centre of investigations.
Former finance and accounts director Najibur Rehman, who worked for the NCL from Oct 2002 to April 2007, and former chief finance officer Saeedur Rehman (June 2004 to Oct 2008) were also found involved in the questionable investment.
At present Mr Rehman is a member in the Capital Development Authority. Despite indictment by the PAC, he was recently given extension in service till further orders by none other than the prime minister.
“I am totally disappointed. This is not the way to treat the most important committee of the house (National Assembly). I am not going to stand by this,” Chaudhry Nisar said.
SC ACCOUNTS: In response to a question raised by PML-Q’s Riaz Hussain Pirzada, a member of the PAC, Chaudhry Nisar said the committee was reviewing a full court judgment which had ruled out the audit of Supreme Court accounts.
He said the court had taken the decision without listening to the PAC and Auditor General of Pakistan whether or not the SC accounts were auditable under the Constitution.
The Supreme Court contended that it did not fall under the category of government departments whose accounts were presented before the audit department for a mandatory audit.
“This time when the court will hear us, we will try to make them understand that no government department can evade the audit. It’s a constitutional requirement,” Chaudhry Nisar said.
RESIGNATION: All members of the PAC requested Chaudhry Nisar not to resign from the post of chairman. Chaudhry Nisar had earlier this month announced that he might quit the post because of the government’s lack of respect for the committee’s recommendations.
Nadeem Afzal Chan, Yasmin Rehman, Rukhsana Bangash and Noor Alam of the PPP, Asia Nasir of JUI-F, Saeed Zafar, an independent MNA, and Pervez Malik, Zahid Hamid and Ayaz Sadiq of the PML-N requested Chaudhry Nisar to continue with his assignment because discontinuation at this point and time would derail whatever good work the bi-partisan committee had so far done.
Chaudhry Nisar neither confirmed nor denied his plan of quitting the PAC and said he had run the committee with full honour and would keep on doing so as long as he held this position. However, he said, he was dejected with government’s response to PAC recommendations.
He said that about three months ago the committee had recommended against using Rangers as personal security guards for politicians, but it was not heeded.
Despite repeated reminders to the government to review its policy of distributing costly residential plots, it was continuing with the practice at a much bigger scale.
Chaudhry Nisar praised all his colleagues and National Assembly Speaker Dr Fehmida Mirza for facilitating the PAC Secretariat to complete the phenomenal task of completing seven reports within three years.
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