LAHORE, March 16: The special audit reports on PIA and Pakistan’s four missions in the US, the UK, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE will be finalized in April.

This was stated by Auditor-General of Pakistan (AGP) Manzur Hussain while talking to reporters after speaking to participants in a performance audit course here on Saturday.

Answering a question about low utilization of development funds by the Punjab, he said it was the responsibility of the provincial government to spend the funds well in time. However, he said, the low utilization of funds reflected bad management on the part of the province. “It’s for them to spend Rs10 billion in two months,” he added in response to another query.

He said his job was to point out corruption, misuse of power and violations of the rules. “I don’t have powers to register FIRs or arrest the people. It is for the public accounts committee to take action on our reports,” he said.

He said the function of parliament should be to carry out accountability of the corrupt and make laws. But, he added, the performance of previous parliaments in this regard was not satisfactory.

He said the construction of the new Supreme Court building and the parliament lodges were classic examples of mismanagement and violation of the rules. He said the cost of the Supreme Court building had increased to Rs711 million when it was completed from the original estimates of Rs378 million. Similarly, the cost of parliament lodges rose to Rs1.157 billion from original Rs700 million.