ISLAMABAD: A parliamentary panel was informed on Tuesday that accounts of Islamabad Club were subjected to multiple internal and external audit.

The Standing Committee on Cabinet Secretariat, which met here in Parliament House with Member of National Assembly (MNA) Kishwer Zahra in the chair, besides other agenda items was briefed about Islamabad Club.

The committee was apprised by the secretary (Islamabad Club) regarding working of the club and services offered to its members. The secretary said that the club was working under the IC Ordinance 1978 with president of Pakistan as its patron and an officer (not lower than Grade 21) as its administrator.

The secretary said that the club was an autonomous body, self sustaining and non recipient of any grant/funds from the government or the exchequer. He added that accounts of the club were subject to multiple tiers of internal and external audits and the accounts had been regularly audited by the auditor general’s department.

Club not recipient of grants, funds from anywhere, secretary says

Earlier, the committee expressed displeasure on the attitude of the bureaucracy for not taking the parliamentary business seriously. The committee unanimously decided not to take briefings from officials of National Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) till the chairman of the authority attended a meeting of the committee.

The chairperson said that the public had been facing issues of unannounced power outages and low voltage throughout the country while the regulator’s (Nepra) attitude was indifferent. She said that power distribution companies were continuously sustaining distribution and transmission line losses and nothing was being done in that regard. She said that ultimately the sufferer was the general public.

The committee decided that chairman of Nepra must be present in its meeting.

It also expressed its concern over non establishment of tribunals required to be established under section 7 of the Pakistan Telecommunication (Re-organisation) Act, 1996 since passage of substantial time. The committee decided to call secretary (Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication) in its next meeting to know reasons behind delay. The officials of Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) apprised the committee that the matter was pending in the ministry since administration of the said act fell under its purview.

The committee, while taking up a starred question moved by MNA Ghaus Bux Khan Mahar, proposed that the Cabinet Division should be kept in the loop by all ministries/divisions while moving summaries of visits of ministers and public functionaries abroad irrespective of the expenditure borne by the public exchequer or sponsored by donor agencies/governments.

The mover of the question contended that presently the country was going through financial crunch and utmost care should be adopted while undertaking visits abroad. The committee decided to talk about the issue further in its next meeting.

The meeting was attended by MNAs Mohammad Sajjad, Shahnaz Saleem Malik, Seema Mohiuddin Jameeli, Mir Ghulam Ali Talpur, Mussarat Rafiq Mahesar, Ahmad Raza Maneka, Mohsin Dawar, Rana Iradat Sharif Khan, and senior officers of departments concerned.

Published in Dawn, May 17th, 2023