ISLAMABAD: Taking advantage of the absence of members belonging to the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), lawmakers from the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) in the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Thursday criticised the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) for its inability to properly recognise thumb impressions.

The issue of thumb impressions has been a headache for the PML-N since it formed the government in May 2013. A sub-committee of the PAC had convened its meeting in the Parliament House on Thursday where Nadra Chairman Usman Yusuf Mobeen was scheduled to give a presentation on the performance of his organisation.

Sardar Ashiq Hussain Gopang (PML-N) is the convener of the sub-committee while its members include Shaikh Rohale Asghar (PML-N), Shahida Akhtar Ali (JUI-F), Azra Fazal Pechuho (PPP) and Dr Arif Alvi of the PTI. Ms Pechuho and Dr Alvi, however, did not attend the meeting.

When the meeting started, Deputy Chairman Nadra Syed Muzaffar Hussain Shah informed the committee that the chairman was not available due to his other engagements.

The members expressed displeasure over the absence of the Nadra chief and directed the secretary PAC to put him on notice.

Before the start of the presentation, Mr Asghar expressed concerns over the capability of Nadra to recognise thumb impressions.

He said: “You have a ‘faulty’ system for the recognition of thumb impressions due to which the government is facing embarrassment.”

Shahida Akhtar Ali endorsed his views and sharing her personal experience said due to the faulty system the citizens faced problems in opening bank accounts as their thumb impressions mismatched with those preserved by Nadra.

A furious Mr Asghar then added that during the elections-related litigation, instead of admitting its fault Nadra had informed the Supreme Court that the thumb impressions of many voters did not match with those preserved with the authority.

The official defended the automated fingerprint identification system and claimed that it was 99.9pc accurate.

He, however, said due to the quality of ballot papers the thumb impression of a voter may not match with the image of the thumb saved in the system.

Nadra detects 38,000 bogus CNICs

The Nadra deputy chairman also informed the sub-committee that out of the total 106 million computerised national identity cards (CNICs), 50 million had so far been verified.

He said the authority had detected 38,000 bogus or fake CNICs.

Mr Hussain later told Dawn that they did not take any disciplinary action against Nadra officials who were responsible for issuing the bogus CNICs due to the two-month amnesty.

He said the amnesty period would expire on August 31 after which the authority would start a crackdown on both the issuers as well as the holders of the fake CNICs. During the briefing, the official said Nadra operated 557 centres across the country and in selected missions abroad.

He said besides developing a border management system for the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and implementing the safe city project in Islamabad, countries such as Fiji, Kenya, Sudan and Nigeria had hired the services of Nadra for maintaining their citizens’ database.

Expressing dissatisfaction over Nadra’s affairs, the convener of the committee, Mr Gopang, criticised its performance in remote areas, especially in villages.

“Nadra offices are even worse than the Patwari offices in the remote villages,” he said.

He claimed that corrupt Nadra officials raised unnecessary objections on the applications of villagers and removed them after taking bribe. Besides, the officials preferred those cases which were referred to them by touts.

“You should at least install CCTV cameras outside the Nadra offices in remote areas to monitor the activities of touts,” he suggested.

The deputy chairman assured the committee that its directions would be implemented.

Audit objection over arms licence fee

Auditors pointed out that the interior ministry from March 3, 2008, to June 30, 2009, issued 88,838 arms licences. The total amount to be deposited from the licence holders was Rs515 million but the ministry deposited Rs413 million only.

The audit officials informed the committee that the FIA had also probed the matter and submitted a report to the secretary interior.

But Secretary Interior Arif Khan told the committee that he was not satisfied with the findings of the report and the matter would be remanded back to the investigation agency for reinvestigation.

Published in Dawn, August 26th, 2016