PAC questions SoP performance, directs performance audit

ISLAMABAD: The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Wednesday questioned the performance of Survey of Pakistan (SOP) and directed audit to conduct performance audit of the organization.

The Committee met here under the chairmanship of Nadeem Afzal Gondal to review the implementation status of PAC directives and to discuss the audit objections for the years 1996-97, 2000-01, 2004-05, 2005-06 and 2006-07 of the Ministry of Defence.

Discussing the Audit para regarding suspected misappropriation of Rs 83.773 million government funds in SoP, the audit Official apprise the committee that National Accountability Bureau (NAB) deducted Rs 65 million embezzlement in the financial accounts of SoP.

He said the audit asked SoP to reconcile their accounts several times but SoP officials failed to reconcile it.

The SoP official told the committee that the matter was in the accountability court and the department could not take action against the officials involved in the bribe.

Audit official told the committee that there was no ban on the departmental inquiry and added that performance audit of the organization should be carried out.

He said that SoP received Rs 900 million budgets from the government and spent it for the salaries of employees.

NAB official told the committee that NAB arrested five employees of the SoP and three people out of five were released on bail and one person requested for plea bargain.

The Committee directed Secretary Defense to conduct inquiry and adopt full procedure and report back to the committee within 10 days.

The committee also expressed serious concerns over the misstatements by the SoP officials and said that officials did not come with the proper work.

The committee also questioned responsibilities of the SoP and said that SoP internal system showed poor performance of the department.

The committee also sought compliance report of the last five years PAC directives.

Members of the committee Noor Alam Khan, Yasmeen Rehman, Asiya Nasir, Riaz Hussain Pirzada, Waseem Akhtar, Ch. Abid Sher Ali, Ch. Saeed Iqbal, Afzal Sandhu and Hamid Yar Hiraj were also present in the meeting.