POF chief uses unparliamentary language

A parliamentary panel was informed on Monday that organisations of defence production had to pay over Rs 4 million as penalty for less use of electricity against the allocated power load. This disclosure perturbed Chairman Pakistan Ordnance Factories (POF) Wah, Lieutenant General Shujat Zamir Dar. He asked why the issue was not raised before discussing the audit paras pertaining to procurement of machinery worth Rs 55 million earlier.
The disclosure was made at a meeting of special committee of Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which met here with Yasmeen Rehman in the chair to review audit paras of defence and production ministry. The general came down harsh at audit officials, saying that he is humiliated by the audit officials in front of media and parliamentarians. "I am a three-star general...this is an assault on my status and dignity," he protested. In a tit-for-tat response to the general, the deputy auditor general said that the lieutenant general must respect the sanctity of the august house and refrain from using unparliamentary language.
The audit officials, who seemed agitated over the behaviour of an enraged general, told the committee that his department [POF Wah] paid Rs 4.6 million as penalty for not utilising the authorised power load. The parliamentary panel observed that on one hand, people are facing eight to twelve hour load-shedding per day and on the other hand government departments had been given approval electricity beyond their consumption needs.
The committee said that for the last eighteen years, the government departments have been paying over Rs 43 million penalty for using less than the sanctioned electricity load but there was nobody to monitor the situation and supply power to these institutions in accordance with their actual need. The parliamentary body directed the authorities concerned to ensure that penalty be paid within a month in case of departments and government owned enterprises, who are in the habit of using less electricity than the allocated power load.