The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Thursday expressed serious anger over the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for failure to tackle the case of Rs 22 billion financial embezzlement in the Federal Employees Benevolent Fund (FEBF).
The PAC meeting held, here under the chairmanship of Rana Tanveer Hussain to discuss and review audit paras related to Establishment Division of year 2011-12 to 2012-13.
The committee said that Rs 22 billion investment of the FEBF in private sector case emerged in 2012 and the NAB was directed to take up the issue but as yet nothing been done for the recovery of the embezzled amount.
Briefing the panel, the Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) said that Rs3 billion were invested in three private companies by the FEBF of which Rs1.2 billion were wasted.
Audit officials in the PAC hearing said that the federal benevolent fund was public money and it could not be invested in private sector.
The committee took a serious note of loss of investments from a fund, which was kept for the pensions of the government servants, widows and their siblings into non-government shares and Terms Finance Certificates (TFCs) without approval from the federal government.
The monthly deductions made from the salaries of the government employees for the Benevolent Funds and more than 580,000 federal government employees are being covered under its welfare schemes.
The employees of the federal government were given 45 percent of the basic salary as house rent but the FEBF and Group Insurance Fund took it to 90 percent of their basic salaries.
The panel, while discussing illegal investment of Rs22 billion from the federal benevolent fund in the private sector, said that it was really sad that the NAB in eight years did nothing against the culprits.
The AGP said the Establishment Division, so far, has not been able to draft rules and regulations related to FEBF.
Briefing the panel, Secretary Establishment Division Dr Ejaz Munir said that the ministry was now formulating rules and regulations for the FEBF, which would be notified within three months.
Secretary Establishment Division informed the committee that the NAB was inquiring into the matter. "The NAB only investigates promptly in matters when it related to politicians," PAC Chairman Rana Tanveer quipped. "This case is under the NAB inquiry since year 2012," he said. "On this performance the accountability bureau should be shuttered down," he further said.
The Chairman PAC asked the NAB officials to give solid reasons behind unnecessary delay in the NAB inquiry in aforementioned case.
He also inquired the NAB representative about the investigation officer of the case who replied the Director General (DG) NAB Rawalpindi, Irfan Naeem Mangi was looking into the matter. The committee decided to summon the DG NAB Rawalpindi to brief the panel on the matter.
Senator Mushahid Hussien Syed remarked that the NAB was only chasing the politicians especially of opposition parties, adding that the NAB has arrested Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Ahsan Iqbal and many other politicians without finalizing the reference, but here in above case the institution has done nothing in past eight years.
He said that the NAB even has not arrested some people involved in mega financial scams since 2001.
Member Committee Hina Rabbani Khar said that the Ministry of Finance must be held accountable for the above case.
She maintained that the NAB officials were always avoiding proper answers to the questions raised by the committee members.
Chairman PAC said that seemingly the NAB was waiting for the passage of new NAB Ordinance, so that the people involved in multibillion financial fraud, could get relief.
The Chairman PAC also questioned from the NAB official why there was double standard of the NAB as in one case relates to EOBI in which whole board was arrested for Rs20 billion fraud , and the case was pending with the Supreme Court, but in this case where Rs2 billion investments were lost but the NAB was silent.
The audit officials told the committee that Section 7 (f) of the FEBF and Group Insurance Act, 1969 states that the board shall have power to invest moneys held in the benevolent fund in government securities and units of Investment Corporation of Pakistan or national Investment Trust, in the construction of buildings for purpose of raising not income, and in other profitable ventures the plans where of having been previously approved by the federal government.
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