Home »Business and Economy » Pakistan » PAC body seeks details of fresh purchased vehicles
Expressing serious anger over the absence of finance secretary from the committee meeting, the subcommittee of Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Monday sought details regarding fresh purchase of vehicles by government departments. The committee which met here with Member of National Assembly (MNA) Noor Alam Khan in the chair to discuss and review audit paras of the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) for the year 2017-18, was informed by the officials of the Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) that despite a ban on the purchase of new vehicles by the Prime Minister of Pakistan, the regulator spent Rs 14.2 million on the purchase of new cars.

The committee members said that despite repeated notices to secretary finance to attend the meeting, he kept on abstaining and directed the PAC Secretariat to write a letter to Prime Minister and inform him about the behaviour of the senior government officials. The panel also directed the concerned department to provide the details of the federal government officials obtaining the membership of Islamabad Club which annually costs Rs 0.5 million to 1.5 million per person. The convener committee said that it was against the federal government's austerity measures and monetization policy.

Chairperson OGRA Uzma Adil while responding to the audit objections said the officials of the regulator were not using personal vehicles and therefore new cars were purchased but all were normal cars as per government policy and were not luxurious cars. Noor Alam Khan further said that government officials were not only violating government's set policy but were also benefiting from monetization policy.

Khan directed the ecretary Cabinet Division to provide all the details to the PAC but the secretary cabinet expressed his inability to share the details with the panel, following which the committee directed the PAC Secretariat to get the details of new purchased vehicles from all the ministries and attached departments.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2019


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