ISLAMABAD, Feb 28: The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the National Assembly on Wednesday admonished the foreign affairs ministry for failing to upgrade its system even after the detection of financial scams in Pakistani missions abroad and cases of passport loss.

“There is a well-organised racket behind these incidents. There are numerous examples of consuls, previously involved in similar scams, serving as ambassadors currently,” said PAC member Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan while responding to a comment from Foreign Secretary Riaz Mohammed Khan.

The foreign secretary had said that the lack of manpower “hampers the smooth flow of work at Pakistani missions abroad during peak hours.”

He meant that whenever a host country announced amnesty, there was a huge workload for which the embassy staff was not sufficient.

“These are not the cases of delays. Ministry officials sit on cases for years. This is embezzlement, but these officials were never punished as our foreign ministry took things too leniently,” said Ch Nisar.

The PAC was discussing a case concerning the embezzlement of Rs1.98 million of the consular fees, committed at the Pakistani mission in Paris during June 1997 and June 2000. It was detected by the audit department.

Later, an inquiry conducted by the ministry established that the embezzlement was committed by an organised racket that included third Secretary Afroz Alam Qazi, consul’s assistant Ms Tasnim Zubair and a local employee Ali Naseem.

The PAC also discussed the disappearance of records of 221 passports from the Pakistani mission in Madrid. The passports were believed to have been issued to illegal immigrants in 2000-01.

The issue of non-maintenance of records pertaining to monthly revenue, issuance registers in the Pakistani mission in Birmingham in 1998 and other cases involving money were also taken not of.

“This is not mismanagement. This is clear embezzlement. Officials don’t deposit the visa fees in banks and keep it with them for years,” Auditor-General of Pakistan Younis Khan said in reaction to the foreign secretary’s claim that there had been no embezzlement in Pakistani missions. He said there were cases of mismanagement only for which the ministry had issued ‘cautions’ to concerned officials, who would have to work in the same scale throughout their career as punishment and could not be promoted.

“The punishment of embezzlement is termination from job and not mere caution,” Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan told the secretary.