FEBGIF building started in 2016 and is yet to complete, PAC told

ISLAMABAD: The Public Accounts Committee was informed on Wednesday that the building of the Federal Employees Benevolent and Group Insurance Fund (FEBGIF) started in 2016 but has not been completed yet.

The committee held its meeting with Rana Tanveer Hussain in the chair in which the audit paras related to the Establishment Division for the financial year 2019-20 were examined. Audit officials told the committee that the Federal Employees Benevolent and Group Insurance Fund had planned a building in the Blue Area and the project was to be completed in three years. The project started in 2016 but has not been completed yet. The audit officials told the committee that Rs 254 million were paid to the contractor while Rs 1.5 billion were surrendered.

Rana Tanveer said an inquiry should be made to determine who is responsible and why the building was not completed. He said the PWD is a hub of corruption and directed that this building should be completed.

The secretary Establishment informed the PAC that the building of the Federal Benevolent Fund and Group Insurance could not go beyond the gray structure and this building has been under construction since 2016. “If I had been the secretary at that time, I would not have started the project,” he told the committee. He said those who started this project have retired.

The audit officials, while briefing the committee on the issue of procurement of stationery and other items by the Establishment Division, said told that items worth Rs 41.8 million were purchased between 2016 and 2018 without the approval of the Purchase Committee. There are no entries in the stock register as according to the audit briefing presented before the committee, 78,690 issued items worth Rs 7,165,000 were also not available in the record. The audit officials told the committee that the department has completed the internal inquiry which has been sent by the department to the Prime Minister’s Office which has directed a forensic audit.

The secretary Establishment Division said the forensic audit will be completed soon. “We will review it and go back to the prime minister and submit it also before the committee,” he said.

While examining another audit para, the auditor general of Pakistan told the PAC that Rs 8.15 billion were collected under the head of the Employees Group Insurance and Benevolent Fund. The money was spent on other head instead of spending it on the employees' life insurance. To a query of Rana Tanveer, the audit officials said they have taken three months’ time from the Departmental Accounting Committee in this regard.