ISLAMABAD, July 16: Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) has raised questions over the award of `Prime Minister`s Special Initiative for Livestock` project to an NGO in 2006 by the Shaukat Aziz government.

The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council had approved the project worth Rs1.69 billion and awarded to the Rural Support Programmes Network (RSPN), a non governmental organization, allegedly in violation of rules.

According to RSPN`s website, the initiative was aimed at enhancing livestock productivity and creation of rural livestock assets.

The AGP in its report observed: “The Planning Commission after the technical evaluation, back in 2006, had asserted in its official communication that the sponsors [federal government] should explain why activities of the project could not be implemented through existing livestock departments of provinces, AJK and Northern Areas.”

The AGP objections have remained unaddressed for the last three years despite repeated reminders to the government.

The departmental audit committee has suggested that the matter should be referred to the Public Accounts Committee.

The report, made available to Dawn , revealed that the officials of Auditor General of Pakistan were now pressing the federal authorities to initiate a `high level` investigation into the matter to “fix responsibility and recover the state money”.

The report said that the contract was awarded to RSPN without evaluating its expertise in the field of livestock.

In fact, the report said, the NGO had to initiate one-month training programme for its personnel in veterinary services, ignoring the existing trained field staff of the government. “The existing field staff of the government having two years diploma were ignored and instead under this project the NGO started one month training for its personnel,” says one of the documents.

A senior government official, who has previously worked with the Ministry of Livestock and Dairy Development, said officials of both Punjab and AJK, felt that livestock related services were available in the province and the state and that the existing departments should be strengthened rather than creating new ones.

The official also said that the Planning Commission had reservations: “The Planning Commission representative stated that the NGO specific PC-I was unique and that it was approved at the highest level by assigning the project to an NGO `without observing transparency`.

The official claimed that even during the drafting of the contract between the government and the NGO the law division was bypassed, which was also a violation of government rules.

According to Rules of Business 1973, “it is mandatory that Law and Justice Division shall be consulted on all legal questions arising out of any case on distribution of business among divisions.”

This is why, said the official, the AGP officials declared the agreement invalid.

When approached, the chief operating officer of RSPN, Khaleel Ahmed Tetlay, said: “The project is not running any more and the [government`s] report is not fair besides we were only issued Rs837 million not Rs1.69 billion.”

“All the pre-requisites of the federal government for awarding the said project to RSPN were followed and it was even approved by Ecnec and Central Development Working Party (CDWP) so there was no flaw in awarding of the contract,” asserted Mr Tetlay.

The government system was followed, he said, besides the project proved beneficial one for the people.

The RSPN official said that “government can`t go to door to door for meeting the challenging task of livestock and dairy development so a second party [RSPN] was involved and we were present in 84 districts and we did it well.”

He maintained that even a third party audit of the project was conducted by multinational management consulting company in 2009 and as per the audit report people benefited from our project and earned profit.

“Few of them [farmers] said that their animals remained fit during all the season and they benefited financially from it,” said Mr Tetley.

Most of the concerns of the government in this regard, he claimed, were just a talk and not in document form.