Law and Justice Ministry has advised the Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) not to carry out an audit of the regulatory functions of Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) in future. Law and Justice Ministry wrote to AGP on Wednesday endorsing Ogra's request to AGP to limit its scope to audit of its accounts (and other regulatory bodies).
"This interpretation of Ministry of Law and Justice will have a negative impact on the functions of AGP described in the Constitution of Pakistan and further strengthened after promulgation of 18th Constitutional Amendments," Auditor General of Pakistan Javaid Jehangir told Business Recorder.
The AGP has decided to take the matter of limiting its scope of audit to the accounts of statutory bodies and corporate sector organizations of federal government to Law and Justice Ministry for review.
Ogra did not provide annual audited accounts for the year 2017-18 to AGP till finalization of the "audit report on accounts of Petroleum Division and Ogra audit year 2018-19" which was laid down in parliament in September 2019.
Federal Ministries/ Division, attached departments semi autonomous, autonomous and companies are bound to submit their annual accounts by end of August each year after closure of their accounts on June 28. In general practice, the AGP submits the annual audit reports to President in February.
The report raised questions on the performance and functions of statutory bodies and other government departments including Ogra; and observed that during Ogra's 2013-14 and 2017-18 audit, Ogra incurred irregular expenditure of Rs 17.4 million on purchase of vehicles despite clear instructions of Finance Division.
In another audit objection raised during the audit of financial year 2014-15, Ogra gave vehicles worth of Rs 13.7 million to officers of other organization which is irregular.
In July 2019, Ogra approached the cabinet division, seeking its intervention for the reversal of an order by a sub-committee of the National Assembly's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) directing AGP to carry out the audit of the regulatory functions of the authority.
Ogra contends that the AGP does not have the authority to carry out the audit of the regulatory functions (of any regulator) because the country's Constitution, the AG Ordinance 2001 and the OGRA Ordinance 2002 limit the scope of AGP powers to the extent of conduct of audit of the accounts of Ogra (and other regulatory bodies).
In a letter addressed to cabinet division's secretary, OGRA Chairperson Uzma Adil Khan urged that the matter be referred to the law and justice ministry for interpretation of legal position of AGP's powers to conduct performance audit of regulators.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2019
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