All 2024-25 audit reports returned to AGP over ‘violations’

ISLAMABAD: The Speaker National Assembly has returned all annual audit reports for audit year 2024-25, covering fiscal year 2023-24, to the Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP), citing serious procedural violations amid controversy over the staggering figures of financial irregularities quoted in the documents.

A spokesman for the National Assembly Secretariat told The News that the reports were sent back on two counts: first, they were dispatched directly to the NA Secretariat without routing them through the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs; and second, they were made public before being formally laid before parliament.

“It is a contempt of the National Assembly,” the spokesman said, adding that the AGP office was even pressing NA officials to place the reports before the House despite the violations.

The government, meanwhile, suspects that “someone inside the AGP office” is deliberately attempting to embarrass it by leaking the controversial audit reports, which cite an “unbelievable” Rs375,000 billion in financial irregularities during FY2023-24.

The figure — 27 times the federal budget of Rs14.5 trillion and more than three times Pakistan’s GDP of Rs110 trillion — has raised serious questions about the credibility of the audit process. Former Auditor General Javed Jehangir described the number as “abnormal” and in need of urgent review. “This staggering amount warrants careful re-examination,” he told The News, pointing out that during his tenure, audit reports were never published before their presentation in parliament.

The AGP office, in response to queries by this correspondent, has already stated that it had followed the laid-down process by sending the reports to the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs along with endorsements to both the NA and Senate Secretariats. “As per procedure, the requisite number of copies were forwarded to the relevant authorities and properly received there,” the AGP spokesman said.

On the inclusion of unprecedented irregularity figures in the executive summary, the spokesman had explained that a “combined audit report” had also been prepared the previous year, but this time the amounts were explicitly mentioned alongside categories of audit findings “for ease of reference”.

However, the spokesman avoided directly addressing the question of why the reports were uploaded on the AGP’s website before being laid before parliament -- something that has now become the crux of the dispute.