PAC orders suspending KDA finance director over ‘bogus payments’

The Sindh Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Monday ordered suspending the Karachi Development Authority’s (KDA) finance director for the allegedly bogus payments of Rs667 million made from the KDA’s pension funds.

PAC members, who were analysing audit objections to the KDA’s financial accounts, were informed that the KDA had paid Rs2.21 billion as monthly pensions to its retired employees and its deceased staffers’ widows.

The audit objection pertained to the lack of any procedure to verify that the late KDA personnel’s widows had not remarried, and that they were duly eligible to receive the pension. PAC Chairman Nisar Khuhro inquired about the method being used to verify the bona fide status of the KDA’s retired employees before the disbursal of the monthly pensions to them to prevent bogus payments to persons who are not entitled to receive pensions from the public exchequer.

The KDA secretary informed the PAC that the retired staffers were required to visit their relevant bank branch to undertake biometric verification every six months to reconfirm their eligibility to receive their pensions.

He said the KDA had stopped paying pensions to 500 persons after they were found to be bogus cases, and had not proved their status as bona fide pensioners. Khuhro said that millions of rupees should not be paid by the KDA to bogus cases every month, especially after the system of biometric verification is in place to prove one’s entitlement to receive the monthly pensions.

He said that such bogus payments cause a loss to the public exchequer, which would not be tolerated by the PAC. The committee also directed the Federal Investigation Agency to look into these bogus payments made by the KDA.