ISLAMABAD, Feb 27: The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the National Assembly on Tuesday sought details from the Ministry of Production of reported allocation of 6,000 acres of Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) land in Karachi for setting up national industrial parks after expressing reservations over some recent scams of land-grabbing under the garb of investment.

The ministry, which was admonished by PAC members for its failure to clean the audit mess of the last ten to 15 years and for attending the meeting without any homework, was also directed to present a complete report regarding the procurement and allocation of land in other parts of the country for industrial parks.

Presided over by Malik Allah Yar, the meeting also directed National Assembly Secretary Ziaul Haq to provide a list of employees appointed in the NA during the term of incumbent Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain.

The NA secretary admitted that there had been some appointments in the assembly recently despite the fact that the burden of salaries and other perks of existing 602 staff was too heavy for the lower house to bear.

“Our hands are cuffed as the court has now also directed us to regularise 336 employees appointed by Speaker Yousaf Raza Gillani in 1996,” Mr Haq said.

The issue of Pakistan Steel Mills land was raised by PPP MNA Qamar Zaman Kaira, who drew attention to the recent land scams in the name of investment and advertisements appeared in newspapers about the 600,000 acres of the PSM given on lease to the national industrial parks development and management company at Rs7 million per acre.

The ministry of industries official informed that 60 per cent members of the board of directors of the company would be from the private sector and 40 per cent from the government.

But the committee refused to accept the clarification and ordered a complete report on how could the government benefit from handing over hundreds of thousands acres of state land to private parties.

Religious Affairs Ministry Secretary Wakeel Ahmed Khan rejected as baseless a comment of MQM MNA Kanwar Khalid Younas who alleged that the 1992 “operation clean-up” in Sindh was financed by Zakat money.