ISLAMABAD: The upper house of parliament joined the apex forum for accountability of government spending on Tuesday when five senators participated in a meeting of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) here on Tuesday for the first time.

The senators who have become members of the committee are: Sherry Rehman of the Pakistan Peoples Party, Mushahid Hussain Syed of the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, Chaudhry Tanvir of the PML-Nawaz, Azam Swati of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and Hidayatullah from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

The PAC is the exclusive forum that examines audit reports on government spending.

On July 28 last year, the Senate adopted a motion approving amendments to the law for giving representation to members of the upper house in the PAC, which previously comprised only members of the National Assembly.

Six senators from different political parties were nominated as members of the PAC by the Senate, including Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haidri of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (Fazl).

Scrutiny of audit reports

During the meeting, the PAC directed the Ministry of National Food Security and Research to conduct an inquiry into embezzlement of Rs 62 million in 2012-13 by the then managing director (MD) of the Pakistan Agricultural Storage and Services Corporation (Passco).

PAC chairman Syed Khurshid Ahmed Shah issued the directive after the meeting reviewed an audit report of the ministry and departments attached to it.

It was told by officials of the audit department that significant financial losses were caused to the national kitty when an agreement for procurement of 3,360,000 polypropylene bags at the rate of Rs27.95 per bag (total value Rs93.91m) was executed by the then MD of Passco retd Maj Gen Tauqeer Ahmed with the Millennium Industries on March 14, 2013.

The meeting directed the officials concerned to conduct a thorough inquiry into the matter and submit the report in the next meeting of the committee.

It also directed the secretary of the ministry to inform the military authorities about the issue and ensure proper action against the former MD after the inquiry.

The audit officials told the committee that as per the inspection report of the Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (PSCIR), the supplier provided bags with two major deviations from the specification i.e. use of recycled material instead of virgin in the production of the bags and reduction of a bag’s weight to 104.59 grams from 115 grams.

But Passco procured the bags on the order of the former MD without observing public procurement rules, the officials alleged.

According to them, the matter was reported to the Passco management on Jan 2, 2014. A departmental accounts committee (DAC), in a meeting on Jan 31, 2014, directed the management to investigate prima facie excess purchase and acceptance of the below specification bags. But no further progress was reported till finalisation of the report.

Published in Dawn, February 22nd, 2017