KARACHI, Feb 13: Treasury and opposition members in the Sindh Assembly on Friday found themselves in rare agreement on the need of empowering the Public Accounts Committee, which is working without a proper office and staff, to make the accountability process more effective.

The issue of rampant corruption in government departments was raised by Jam Tamachi of the Pakistan People’s Party when he sought cooperation of the speaker and the chief minister in discharging his duty as chief of Public Accounts Committee.

As the session was called to order around two hours behind the schedule at 11.40am with Speaker Nisar Ahmed Khuhro in the chair, Jam Tamachi, who is also the chairman of the PAC, stood on a point of order to draw the attention of the house towards the trend of exercising public authority without any accountability.

He claimed that there were departments where billions of rupees had been embezzled but their audit had not been carried out for the last four years.

He made it clear that he was talking about the past governments and not the present one. He said that due to a long autocratic rule in the country no report of the public accounts committee had been presented before the house over the past 17 years due to which corruption was on the rise.

He said that during the current year, the PAC was examining the audit reports of 2003-04 appropriation accounts and today the audit report of the account of the year 2005-06 was laid.

He said that in western democratic countries, accounts were audited every year to bring to justice officials responsible for the misuse of public funds but here there were departments whose audit had not been carried out for the last 3-4 years.

Referring to a lack of resources, Mr Tamachi said that the chairman of the previous Public Accounts Committee, Jam Madad Ali, spent five years without an office, adding that he was also without an office and staff. He questioned as to how the PAC could work and deliver in such circumstances.

He asked the speaker’s cooperation in making the public accounts body completely functional.

Arif Mustafa Jatoi of the National People’s Party stood from the opposition benches on a point of order and said that the Sindh Assembly had set up 30 standing committees, and if they were given suo motu powers, the committees could examine the expenditures incurred by the relevant departments without waiting for five to 10 years for the audit of accounts.

He wondered how a committee could work when its chairman could not even call a meeting without permission of the speaker.

Leader of the Opposition in the Sindh Assembly Jam Madad Ali, who was the former chief of PAC, endorsed the submissions of Mr Tamachi and said that the latter had rightly mentioned that the PAC was required to do a lot of work which was not possible in the absence of required staff and a proper office.

He recalled that he and the members of the previous PAC had faced the same problem for five years. However, the PAC started functioning from a small office where even its nine members could not sit comfortably, he added.

He said that the PAC, which he had headed, was the first committee which had worked and covered 70 per cent accounts. He said he would like to take permission from the house to get its report published in book form so that it could be presented in the house.

Speaker Nisar Khuhro agreed with Mr Tamachi and assured the house that efforts were being made to locate suitable premises either in the Sindh Assembly building or in the MPA hostel for the office of the PAC.

He also responded to Mr Jatoi’s remarks by saying that if amendments were made in the rules, he had no objection to the committees being empowered.

Many more members were keen to raise issues of public importance through points of order but the chair reminded them that it was Friday. He switched to the order of the day and initiated questions hour before adjourning the session to Saturday at 10am.