Violation of rules
PAC summons chairman privatization commission
By Saad Saud

ISLAMABAD—Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the National Assembly on Thursday expressed its dissatisfaction over the district governments performance for not taking action on the Auditor-General report unearthing corruption at district level.
The PAC meeting was held with its chairman, Malik Allah Yar Khan, in the chair. Members of the PAC, Roy Mansab Ali Khan, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, Qamer Zaman, Aasia Azeem, Ghafoor Haidri and Safdar Shakir attended the meeting. Auditor General was also present on the occasion. Auditor General told the PAC that his report was torn by the Nazims of 104 districts without taking any action against the elements involved in corruption.
The committee summoned chairman privatization commission, Altaf Saleem, for violating rules and regulations in 2000. The committee took strong exception for not seeking approval of 290 million rupees for unnecessary expenditures from the parliament and directed secretary finance and auditor-general to confirm the record and make the policy simple.
The auditor-general raised a point saying that the amount collected from privatization was to be deposited in federal consolidated fund (FCF) but a previous government opened account in the State Bank in 2000 and the amount was deposited there. He said that 10 percent of the privatization was to be spent on poverty alleviation and 90 percent on return of loans but the privatization commission had been fulfilling its expenditures by the 10 percent amount, which was illegal.
The secretary finance differed the auditor-general remarks and said that 1.28 trillion rupees were spent on foreign loans during ten years. However, auditor-general said that 55.9 billion rupees were returned to the national exchequer due to lack of proper strategy.
The committee remarked that the income of privatization commission was not being spent properly and the chairman used the amount on his own will. Malik Allah Yar Khan directed the Ministry of Finance to jointly investigate with the auditor-general the embezzlement and determine as to who was responsible for it. The committee also directed for probe into over 10 billion rupees grant of Khushkhal Pakistan. The meeting was informed that 23.9 billion rupees were released for unnamed projects in FATA, the four provinces, AJK and northern areas.
Auditor-general requested the committee for increasing staff which the committee approved directing to recruit more staff.