KARACHI: The Sindh Assembly public accounts committee on Wednesday refused to settle two of the three paras of the the audit and inspection report of the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education, Larkana, for want of relevant documents in support of Rs23.915 million expenditure.

The only para that was settled involved only Rs0.394 million pertaining to expenditures incurred on sports activities.

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) meeting was presided over by its member Lal Chand Ukrani in absence of its chairman Saleem Raza Jalbani, who could not make it due to unspecified reasons.

The committee took serious notice of the failure of the board authorities to produce relevant record for settling the other two paras.

PAC members Nand Kumar, Khairunisa Mughal and Sorath Thebo grilled the board officials concerned. They said a notice for the PAC meeting was given last week. They added that the board officials had almost a week at their disposal but the papers they had brought with them manifested their non-serious attitude towards the PAC.

They said neither they had come after proper homework nor brought the relevant papers to justify the expenditures in accordance to public procurement regulatory authority rules as such the two paras neither could be deferred nor settled without verification of the documents.

The board chairman took the plea that the board had all the required documents but they did not bring the record with them, as the predecessor of the DG audit had verified all the papers in support of the expenditures and recommended in remarks for settling the paras. “Therefore, we request the PAC to settle the paras keeping in view the remarks of the previous DG audit,” he said.

Refusing to accept the plea of the board authorities, DG Audit Ghulam Akbar Sohu said that even if the previous DG audit had recommended settling the paras, no official of the audit could satisfy himself without going through the documents.

He suggested to the PAC to refer the paras to a three-member subcommittee for verification of the record that the board officials pledged to submit in next meeting.

Lal Chand observed that as the PAC was not satisfied with the plea of the board chairman, the paras could not be settled.

He agreed with the observation of the DG audit, and referred the paras to the subcommittee for verifying the documents of expenditures as per rules.

He said the subcommittee would be formed by the PAC chairman on Thursday when the committee would reassemble to consider the audit reports of the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education, Sukkur.

The two paras 41-1 and 14.4 pertain to Rs6.879 million expenditure without compliance of the public procurement regulatory authority rules and non-accountal of stores articles worth Rs17.036 million.

Published in Dawn, November 13th, 2014