Islamabad: There has been an irregularity of as much as 7.7 million in the buying of weapons by the Ministry of Defence Production of Pakistan.
This was revealed during a meeting of the Public Accounts Committee to review the defence audit paper under the chairmanship of Nadeem Afzal Chan.
Though refusing to adjust the large amount used against rules and regulations, Yasmin Rehman of Pakistan People’s Party said they have not yet labeled responsibility of the act on anyone.
Speaking on the occasion, the Auditor General of Pakistan, Buland Akhtar Rana said it is a huge scandal and revealed that ‘two institutions of the ministry have refused to submit their record for audit.’ Revealing their names, he said these are Wah Nobel Pvt. Ltd. and Pakistan Ordinance Factories Pvt. Ltd.
He also said that amount of billions of rupees of Heavy Industries Taxila is not kept in government’s accounts. Rana said that according to the Act of Parliament, all institutions are bound to submit this information for auditing.
Responding to the queries, Secretary Defence Production, Lt. Gen. (retd) Shahid Iqbal admitted that an irregularity in the case has taken place, stressing punishment to the responsible if it had been done intentionally.
Concluding the discussion, representatives of PAC sought from the secretary defence production in written that such sort of amount will be kept in government’s accounts in future. It said that whosoever will refuse audit will have special directives issued against them.
It also said that the matter is a grave one and, thus, should be taken very seriously. PAC said that all institutions must be compliant to submit the record as they are bound under the constitution to do so. They said that they will have to send a reference of noncompliance of the constitution to the parliament against such institutions in future.
Special bodies’ merger in PAC
Meanwhile, the committee decided to merge all special committees in itself. In this regard, all these committees will become ineffective after November 30. It said that these bodies have completed their work.
The PAC, after this move, has decided to send notices to the President’s House, Prime Minister’s Secretariat and Supreme Court next week. Moreover, a representative of the apex court will be sought in the second week of December.
The registrar of the court holds the position of Principle Accounting Officer.
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