ISLAMABAD, March 28: The $98 million defective locomotive deal finalized during the tenure of Lt-Gen (retired) Javed Ashraf Qazi as railway minister in 2001 would be scrutinized by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) here on Tuesday. The PAC meets under the glare of media spotlight after the ban on journalists to sit in its meetings was lifted.

The committee members would be questioning senior officials of the railway ministry to fix responsibility for the scam as the PAC led by Chairman Malik Allahyar tries to seek answers to questions as to who cleared the import of the defective locomotives and why the railway engineers could not detect the defects at the time of delivery.

The other item on the agenda is the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA). However, it was learnt that the PIA would not be appearing before the committee in what a PAC member said an attempt by the corporation to avoid parliamentary probe.

An official in the defence ministry claimed that the PIA had been exempted from the meeting by the PAC itself and a new date of April 11 had been given for the scrutiny of its affairs.

A committee member, Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, MNA, told Dawn that the PIA had sought exemption from attending the meeting as it wanted to give a briefing to President Pervez Musharraf before subjecting itself to the parliamentary probe for the acts of omission and commission.

The committee members who would try to fix responsibility for the $98 million Pakistan Railways scam include MNAs Qurban Ali Shah, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, Liaquat Baloch, Kunwar Khalid Younas and others.

The committee is seized with important questions to determine if any kickbacks or commissions were taken while clearing the defective engines or if it was a result of the gross inefficiency of the officials to detect the defects. The committee would try to find the Pakistani link of the importers to know if a commission was taken as shadows of doubt persist about a ruling party member’s involvement in the deal.