ISLAMABAD, Jan 24: It was one of the rare occasions on Thursday when the Auditor General of Pakistan, who normally assists the Public Accounts Committee during its meetings, criticised the PAC for not taking up audit objections concerning the government.

AGP Akhtar Buland Rana took on Chairman Nadeem Afzal Gondal and members of the committee for sitting on those audit reports which highlighted financial irregularities of the present government.

During a meeting of the PAC on Thursday, Mr Rana said efforts of the audit department had come to naught because the committee did not take up cases of financial mismanagement by the PPP government.

For example, the AGP said, primarily it was his department which first detected lack of financial transparency in the rental power projects. Had the PAC acted on time and without waiting for the Supreme Court to take a suo motu notice of the scam, the audit team would have got the credit for unearthing the scam, but now “nobody knows what role we played in unearthing the scam and people are just praising the SC”.

The AGP has presented audited reports for as late as the 2010-11 financial year so far, but the PAC has discussed reports up to 2005-06. Mr Rana said inaction by the PAC would suggest that it had deliberately avoided taking up audit paras concerning the PPP government.

He even asked the PAC chairman to delegate his powers to him to take up suo motu notice against the government departments which were found involved in wasting public funds.

Mr Gondal, the PAC Chairman, asked the AGP to prepare a list of mega scandals which took place under the present government so that these could be taken up next month. He agreed that there could have been a major impact on financial discipline had the PAC scrutinised reports about the present government.

A PAC member belonging to the PML-N told Dawn that it was interesting to hear Mr Rana chastise a PPP chairman of the committee, because he (AGP) himself was accused of siding with the government at the time of his appointment by former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani last year. “It seems that Mr Rana has changed his mind after the sacking of Mr Gilani and is now hitting out at the current government,” he said.

The PAC suggested an immediate sacking of Chairman of the National Engineering Services of Pakistan, Asad Khan, on the recommendation of its sub-committee. The PAC chairman asked Nargis Sethi to remove Mr Khan within a month.