PESHAWAR, April 18: The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly has taken serious notice of the misuse of government rest houses and directed the authorities concerned to charge rent from any official staying in a rest house for over a week according to the local market rates.

The committee meeting was held at the assembly secretariat with Speaker Kiramatullah Chagharmatti in the chair. MPAs Abdul Akbar Khan, Saqibullah Khan Chamkani, Mohammad Zamin Khan, Mohammad Ali Shah Bacha, Abdul Shakoor Khan and Malik Tahmash Khan attended the meeting.

The participants pointed out that the government officials had been misusing the rest houses by spending months in them, while in some cases they used to occupy the rooms for years and avoid payment of the charges.

They said that this illegal practice had been causing huge loss to the national exchequer and the government would not remain silent about it. The committee directed the administration to take stern action against those found guilty in this regard.

The committee also directed the officials to follow the rules for purchase of vehicles through open tenders. The meeting discussed the issues pertaining to helicopter scandal and allotment of vehicles to irrelevant people, and gave the file to a sub-committee for investigation.

Earlier, the speaker said that internal audit of the government departments was very weak and added that most of the problems were created due to unavailability of the relevant record. He asked the administrative secretaries to avoid unnecessary defence of their departments.

APP ADDS: The committee discussed different audit objections during the year 2008-09 concerning the department of administration and took decisions in this regard.

It urged the officers using accommodation in rest houses to refrain from inflicting losses on government treasury. The committee expressed anger over the matter of occupation of rooms in the government rest houses for months and years in the name of booking by officials. They said that this attitude also created severe accommodation problems for other officers.

The committee urged the department of administration for discouraging the tradition of long stay in the rest houses and initiating action in this regard.