AGPR admits corruption in clearing bills

ISLAMABAD: While admitting corruption in clearing of bills worth billions of rupees, the Accountant General of Pakistan Revenue (AGPR) on Wednesday informed the Senate Standing Committee on Finance that around 30 percent bills were rejected by them during the last financial year.
“We admit that there is corruption in the process of clearing bills but I am taking corrective measures after assuming charge of this office,” AGPR Hafiz Muhammad Tahir testified before the parliamentary panel.
The Senate committee held its meeting under chairmanship of Senator Saleem Mandviwalla in which senators belonging to all political parties argued that commission ranging between 2 to 5 percent was being charged to clear bills of contractors worth billions of rupees.
Mandviwalla told the committee that the Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) Rana Assad Amin sought more time to come up with findings of audit of payment of pensions as they had not yet accomplished this exercise.
Senator Kamil Ali Agha of the PML-Q said that if anyone denied having inclusion of 16 percent for providing bribe for clearing bills of contractors then he lived in a fool’s paradise. Sardar Fateh Mohammad Hassni said the AGPR got 2 to 5 percent for clearing bills and it was a known fact.
The AGPR at one stage of the meeting said that the committee should send out written complaint about black sheep in their department enabling them to identify them and then he will take action.
Senator Ilyas Bilour of the ANP mentioned name of one officer of AGPR posted in Peshawar few years back who used to get alleged bounty to clear the bills.The AGPR told the committee that they have devised mechanism to pass bills without much delay or alleged corruption.
Presenting analysis of last fiscal year, he said that total 347,455 cases for clearing bills were sent to AGPR out of which 244,405 were cleared and 95,956 cases were rejected by them on the basis of 40 to 50 different factors.
He said that on the basis of clearing bill within one day, there were 5,956 cases out of which 3,197 were approved, while 2,676 were rejected. “These cases mainly belonged to premier institution of the country,” he said, without mentioning names but Saleem Mandviwalla mentioned that these cases belonged to the prime minister, president and other ministries.
In the category of one to three days, total number of cases stood at 97,303 out of which 65,227 were approved, while 31,980 were rejected by them. In category of four to five days, total number of cases stood at 74,325 out of which 55,052 were approved while 19,273 were rejected.
On the issue of freezing allowances of public servants, the Finance Ministry official informed the committee that the total cost of national exchequer for unfreezing allowances stood at Rs60 to 70 billion so the government decided to keep allowances frozen at existing level.