KARACHI, Jan 9: The Sindh Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Wednesday refused to consider certain paras of the audit report concerning Kashmore and Shikarpur district governments after finding that the working papers with comments of the provincial director-general of audit were not provided to the committee a day earlier.

The deputy commissioners concerned requested the PAC to give a week’s time to prepare and furnish the working papers and get the director-general’s para-wise comments.

The PAC, which resumed its meeting under the chairmanship of Sardar Jam Tamachi Unnar in the committee room No. 1 of the Sindh Assembly on Wednesday, accepted the request and deferred the consideration of the paras accordingly.

The deputy commissioner of Shikarpur complained to the PAC chief that the executive district officer (EDO) of education was not extending cooperation to the administration in the audit process. He was asked if he had shown the EDO the letter regarding the Wednesday meeting of the PAC. The DC was also told that he should have taken up the matter with the education secretary before making a complaint to the PAC.

During the meeting, the director-general of audit asked the Board of Revenue secretary about the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) base in Nawabshah for which the Sindh government had released Rs419 million, arguing that the base project related to the defence ministry and wondering how the civilian government incurred such a huge expenditure on a non-civilian project. The secretary, who also came without the relevant working papers, could not give a reply.

He also failed to explain Rs580 million anomalies as identified in the audit reports. He informed the PAC that the Chief Minister’s Inspection Committee (CMIT) had already conducted an inquiry into the anomalies. He was also asked about the fraudulent payment of Rs200 million to M/s Sindh Land Management & Development Company for a housing project.

The meeting questioned the CMIT intervention before the PAC could see the auditors report, which were entrusted to the PAC for consideration. The CMIT could not initiate action until the matter was reported by the PAC, it was observed.

The director-general of audit expressed his dissatisfaction over the secretary’s explanation and remarked that the Board of Revenue failed to produced approval of Rs200 million project by the planning and development department, PC-1, bank guarantee, company registration certificate, sales tax and income tax registration certificates and a copy of the agreement between the department and the company.

The PAC gave the department one week to clear its position regarding expenditure of the Rs200 million in the housing project and Rs419 million in the PAF base project.

Ghulam Mujaddid Isran and Dr Rafique Bhanban were among those present at the meeting.