LAHORE: A spokesman of Punjab Education Foundation (PEF), while commenting on ‘PEF gets audit done by third party against CM’s orders’ which published in Dawn on July 21, has said that all rules and procedures were strictly followed in hiring of the firm for special audit.

The selection of the firm was done after following a transparent process and guidelines of Punjab Procurement Rules, 2014.

“The selected firm has not worked with PEF since July 2013 which fulfills the requirement of eligibility criteria approved by the board through EOI document,” said the spokesman while adding that the report of Chief Minister’s Inspection Team (CMIT) pertaining to PEF was discussed in 56th BoD meeting; and it was decided that special audit, as recommended by the CMIT chairman, will be conducted by a professional third-party audit firm; and Terms of Reference (ToRs) for hiring third-party firm to conduct special audit were approved by the Board of Directors.

The chief minister’s office and school education department were informed accordingly about the board’s approval and decision.

“Clause 5(1) of the Punjab Education Foundation Act, 2004 stipulates that the executive authority and managing of the foundation shall vest in the board so the BoD is fully competent to decide such a

matter. Provincial secretaries of both school education and finance departments are ex-officio members of the board.

He further said EOI for PEF’s special audit was approved by the PEF BoD and published in national dailies which included not only financial but full-fledged performance audit of the whole organisation including governance structure, performance of programmes, financial transactions and controls and human resource development,” said the spokesman.

Published in Dawn, July 27th, 2015

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