ISLAMABAD: The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Wednesday decided to write a letter to the prime minister with a request to increase manpower and capacity of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).
This was decided during a meeting of sub-committee IV of PAC headed by Riaz Fatyana. The sub-committee discussed the inability of the FIA headquarters to provide records of Rs 21 million during the meeting.
The committee expressed displeasure after finding that there has been no progress in some of the cases which are pending before the agency for quite long. Fatyana who is the convener of the sub-committee wanted action against the officer who are handling the cases.
He asked the FIA Director General, Sanaullah Abbasi, to reveal the names of the officers who were not ready to show good performance. To this, the DG FIA said that the agency had submitted the challan in the cases of Employees’ Old-Age Benefits Institution (EOBI), which had been pending for the last 12 years.
Abbasi said that he was getting 200-300 cases per day and so were other senior officers and directors, adding the agency is facing many challenges due to limited resources with the agency.
Commenting on the EOBI cases, Senator Talha Mahmood said that billions of rupees had been embezzled in the EOBI. He said that the EOBI officers made personal gains by making investments.
The senator criticized the FIA for registering cases only six to seven months ago, when they had been pending since 2014.
In response, the DG FIA said that the number of cases disposed of in these six or seven months is the highest in the history of the FIA.
Fatyana proposed that the FIA should seek help from the Attorney General’s Office regarding pending cases, adding the agency should send a summary to the Prime Minister’s Office and get approval for recruitment.
The PAC decided to write a letter to the prime minister requesting him to increase the capacity and the manpower of the FIA, so the institution could work more effectively.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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