The subcommittee of the Public Accounts Committee met here under the chairpersonship of Senator Sherry Rehman to discuss and review the audit paras of the BISP and Ministry of Housing and Works of 2015 and 2016. The committee was informed by the officials of the Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) that Rs 2.25 billion sent to 74,000 people by the BISP were not received by the persons concerned and the amount remained unutilised for two years.
Sherry Rehman said that the PAC can really change the culture of audit and accountability. She stressed the need for cooperation to instill transparency and new compliance procedures for public money regardless of which party was in rule. Rehman said that the PAC should not be made a committee for settling political scores but to resolve the issues for which the forum has been established.
Briefing the panel, the officials of the BISP said that so far Rs 5 billion sent to the different people have been returned to the national kitty as the people to whom the amount had been sent didn't withdraw it.
Member Committee Ejaz Shah said, "I am wondering that Rs 5 billion had been sent to the bank accounts of thousands of people but they didn't withdraw the amount. It means the whole system is not working properly."
Senator Rehman said that it also shows mismanagement and the failure of communication between the BISP and the people getting financial aid from the government. She further said that the poor people are longing for even Rs 100 but Rs 5 billion remained unutilised. The chairperson of the panel sought entire details of the unutilised money from BISP officials within a week.
The AGP officials informed the committee that BISP officials selected unauthorised banks to distribute aid money among the people and paid Rs 2.19 billion to these banks on account of service charges. They further told the committee that an amount of Rs 7 million was paid to BISP officials of grade-19 illegally on account of conveyance allowance. The committee directed the BISP officials to provide all the details within one week.
The panel while discussing and reviewing the audit paras of the Ministry of Housing and Works was informed by the AGP officials that the ministry was setting aside laid out principles on allocating the official residences to the federal government employees.
The panel was informed that the ministry has devised a general waiting list keeping in view the seniority of the federal government employees but the ministry is not following the list while allocating houses to the officials.
The committee was informed that Housing Ministry allocated 11 houses reserved for additional secretary level officials to grade-17 and grade-18 officials in violation of the set rules.
The secretary housing and works while acknowledging it said that the waiting list of the ministry to allocate official residence to federal government employees was not followed and could be tampered, but now the ministry is going to make it computerised. He also informed the panel that the houses allocated to junior officials have been withdrawn.