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LAHORE - MUBASHIR HUSSAIN - Against the backdrop of rising hostility between PPP and PML-N after PM Gilani’s conviction, Punjab Governor Latif Khosa has written a letter to Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, asking him to place audit reports of district governments before the Public Accounts Committee.
The letter under the subject: “Placing of Audit Reports on the Accounts of District Government before the Provincial Public Accounts Committee” mentions an Auditor General of Pakistan’s meeting with the Governor on 01-05-2012 when they shared their concern for the efficacy and effectiveness of the role of audit as a watchdog for transparency in use of public funds.
It reads: “As the matter has been kept pending for too long, I have resolved to wield the mantle of Constitutional Head of the Province so as to specifically invoke Article 171 of the Constitution. Accordingly, in my capacity as Punjab Governor, I hereby direct that without any dereliction of delay, the annual audit reports in question having been forwarded by the Governor’s Secretariat to the Chief Minister’s Secretariat on 4-6-2009, 27-8-2009, 12-12-2008, 5-3-2012 and 26-3-2012 should be laid before the designated PAC of the Punjab Assembly,”.
The governor said he was alarmed over siphoning off billions of public money without any public accountability. “The entire matter has been put under the carpet without being tabled before the PAC and the Provincial Assembly.”
The letter highlights the impediments having forestalled the laying of annual audit reports of AG Office on the accounts of district governments before the PAC and result want of scrutiny of these reports by the said competent forum.
“This aspect has been held in abeyance since 2001-02 to date in gross violation of constitutional as well as statutory provisions”, said the governor who believed that the problem had emanated from “confusion worse confounded due to proven failure of Punjab government to hold Local Government elections”.
Discussing the constitutional and legal implications of not placing the audit reports before the PAC, the governor has noted that it was violation of relevant provision of Article 171 of the Constitution according to which the laying of audit reports before representatives of the people in the Provincial Assembly is mandatory.
The governor added: “The finalised audit reports with detection of financial irregularities worth billions of rupees could not be allowed to rot and rust but for wanton of indifference and apathy shown by the executive arm of the provincial government”.
He told the chief minister about the alleged misinterpretation of the provisions of the Punjab Local government Ordinance to exclude the role of Auditor General of Pakistan from the audit of district governments.
According to Punjab government’s interpretation, the letter says, the audit reports of the district governments are to be laid before the respective Zila Accounts Committees instead of the Public Accounts Committee of the Provincial Assembly; and audit of the TMAs was falling under the purview of the Local Fund Audit rather then the department of Auditor General of Pakistan.
“But convening of newly-constituted Zila Accounts Committees could only be possible consequent upon holding of local bodies’ elections which was nothing but a distant dream”, the letter says.
The governor has remarked that this misinterpretation had been done in order to evade public accountability enshrined under Article 170 (2), 171, 149A of the Constitution and that the executive arm of the govt had ventured into willful subversion of sanctity of the Constitution, simultaneously depriving the people of their inalienable fundamental right to be treated in accordance with Law under Article 4 and 2 (A).
“Even otherwise, it would be idiotic to have the audit reports submitted before the Administrator who in his ex officio capacity also exercises the powers of Principal Accounting Officer against whom originally the defalcations have been raised. He would stand answerable only if the matter is scrutinized and probed by the superior forum of PAC of the provincial assembly”, reads the letter.