KARACHI: Only one of the 10 outstanding draft paras involving around Rs1,787 million of the police department audit report was settled in the Thursday meeting of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the provincial assembly that gave a warning to the police department to ensure timely submission of relevant record before their next meeting.

In the meeting, which was presided over by PAC chief Salim Raza Jalbani, the one para related to Rs5.28 million expenditure during the financial year 2008-09 was settled.

The PAC chief asked inspector-general of police A.D. Khawaja to ensure that the relevant record be submitted to the auditors a week before scheduled meeting of the committee for verification.

Mr Jalbani, who was assisted by PAC members Syed Sardar Ali Shah, Khairunnisa Mughal, Sorath Thebo and Poonjo Bheel, and officials of the audit and finance department, recalled that the meeting was held after three months to consider working papers on deferred draft paras of the audit report. Yet neither the DDOs were present at the meeting to answer questions nor were the working papers submitted a week earlier so that PAC members could have studied them and come prepared to the meeting, the PAC chief said.

He added that this would not acceptable in future and expressed the hope that the required documents would be produced to the auditors for verification so that the paras could be settled.

IG Khawaja, who was accompanied by DIG (Finance) Sultan Ali, assured the PAC that next time he would ensure presence of the DDOs before the committee and that the working papers be delivered to the PAC on time.

Conceding ground realities, the police chief also admitted that purchase record could not be maintained in some cases and work had been done without inviting tenders and following Sindh Public Procurement Regulatory Authority rules due to frequent change of officials. He also said sometimes the record was stolen from the offices.

In case of Sukkur, Larkana and Badin district police offices, he said, expenditure was made without inviting tenders.

Rs72.09m dues outstanding against federal institutions

In reply to a question, IG Khawaja said that out of Rs98.360 only Rs26.277 million was recovered on account of police guards service charges while Rs72.063 million was still outstanding against eight federal institutions including the State Bank of Pakistan, Water and Power Development Authority, Oil and Gas Development Company, Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation, Pakistan Railway, National Telecommunication Corporation, Pakistan Television and Sui Southern Gas Company.

After the meeting, Sindh police chief told the media that the police department was being purged from personnel with tainted records on the orders of the apex court. He said the committee, which was carrying out scrutiny on a daily basis, was headed by additional IG Sanaullah Abbasi.

Published in Dawn, April 22nd, 2016