PAC recovered Rs589bn in three and a half years: chairman

ISLAMABAD: Chairman Public Accounts Committee Rana Tanveer Hussain informed the committee on Thursday that the PAC had recovered Rs589 billion so far in its current tenure of three and a half years.

The Public Accounts Committee also sought a report from the Electronic Certification Accreditation Council while ordering a probe into the alleged award of a project in violation of rules to the NTC.

The Public Accounts Committee held its meeting on Thursday under its Chairman Rana Tanveer Hussain in which the audit paras of the Ministry of Information Technology for the year 20219-20 were examined.

Examining the audit para, the Audit officials told the committee that a project was submitted to the NTC in March 2018 by the Electronic Certification Accreditation Council but the contract of the project was awarded without any PC-1 and the amount of over Rs100 million was also paid to the NTC in violation of rules.

Chairman PAC Rana Tanveer Hussain directed the secretary Information Technology to inquire into the matter and also share the inquiry report with the Audit authorities. The Audit officials briefed the committee on the non-receipt of arrears of Rs259 million by the Telecom Foundation and told the committee that according to the management of the Telecom Foundation, they had recovered Rs198 million but did not share the record with Audit.

Secretary, Ministry of Information Technology, informed the committee that Rs204 million had been recovered while Rs5 million were still to be recovered from the NTC. The committee directed that the audit of the recovery be verified by the authorities and a report be submitted to the committee.

During the meeting, Rana Tanveer Hussain informed the committee that the PAC has recovered Rs589 billion so far in its current tenure of three and a half years. Chairman PAC Rana Tanveer Hussain, while commenting on the figures of recovery of the NAB, said that the figures given by bureau do not seem to be correct. "We will soon summon the NAB and ask that four months ago they said that their recovery was Rs520 billion but now it was Rs580 billion,” he said adding how it had increased by Rs60 billion in four months.