KARACHI: The Public Accounts Committee of the Sindh Assembly on Monday warned the deputy commissioner of Hyderabad of serious consequences if he failed to attend the next meeting of the province’s financial watchdog to settle the audit paras for the financial year 2010-11.

Instead of attending the PAC meeting, Hyderabad DC Fayyaz Ahmad Jatoi sent his subordinate to settle the audit paras about financial anomalies based on the audit report on the accounts of the Hyderabad district government.

Presided over by PAC Chairman Saleem Raza Jalbani and attended by its members — Khairunnisa Mughal, Nand Kumar and Syed Sardar Ali Shah — the meeting took notice of what was described as the non-serious attitude of the DC and warned him that that the matter would be referred to the National Accountability Bureau or the anti-corruption establishment.

The representative of the Hyderabad DC, Additional Deputy Commissioner Attaullah Nohani, was not only unprepared but also did not possess required working papers when the PAC took up the matter for consideration.

Mr Jalbani said that the last meeting of the PAC was held on Jan 8, 2013 and one could expect from the officials concerned to have that audit paras concerned with expenditures from the public exchequer and had to justify every penny of the public money as per rules.

He said that the claim made by the additional DC regarding settling 15 out of 19 paras of the audit report by presenting a mere paper was not enough as the paper submitted did not bear any signature.

Syed Sardar Ali said presence of the local government minister in Hyderabad was no excuse for ignoring the scheduled PAC meeting and observed that if the DC would not turn up at the next meeting, the PAC would have to exercise its “other options”.

Nand Kumar said that the working papers ought to be submitted to the PAC secretariat at least seven working days before; whereas the nominee of the deputy commissioner had presented the working papers only 27 minutes before the meeting time.

Ms Mughal said the PAC members were elected representatives who also took out time from their constituencies to discharge their obligations and justify the money spent on their visit to attend the PAC meeting.

Earlier, the PAC in its meeting considered the working paper pertaining to the Institute of Business Administration in Sukkur for the financial year 2008-09.

There were three paras involving over Rs500,000 and the meeting settled two paras regarding purchase of stationery and special supplementary allowance to a lecturer for looking after the responsibility of hostel provost.

However, one para involving a Rs200,000 payment in the head of medical allowance to various gazzetted employees of the IBA was deferred until next meeting.

The PAC will settle the para if Sukkur IBA Director Nisar Ahmad Siddiqui would produce a document sanctioning the allowance by the competent authority.

Published in Dawn, August 25th, 2015

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