PESHAWAR, July 11: The public accounts committee of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly on Wednesday ordered fresh inquiry into financial irregularities detected in the office of executive engineer of irrigation division in Swat.

The committee examined audit accounts of irrigation division Swat and detected Rs22 million irregularities in two different cases.

The PAC also ordered inquiries against the concerned officers.

PAC acting chairman MPA Mukhtiar Ali Khan chaired a meeting, which was attended by MPAs Saqibullah Khan Chamkani, Fazl Shakoor Khan, Mohammad Zameen Khan and Malik Tehmash Khan, said a statement.

The committee was told that irrigation department had conducted inquiries against the concerned officials in the same cases and despite proving charges no action was taken against them.

On this occasion secretary canal division said that audit objections were correct and department had failed to take disciplinary action against the responsible officers.

The committee detected total Rs22.2 million misappropriations in the office of executive engineer of irrigation division in Swat and directed to reopen cases and hold inquiries against officials.

The committee was informed that secretary level inquiry was conducted in Swat irrigation division in 2006-07 and charges were proved against the concerned officials.

The inquiry committee at that time had ordered recovery of the embezzled money from the officers, who were found guilty, but no action was taken and the case was put in cold storage.

The PAC directed to set up joint committee comprising officers of irrigation, audit and finance departments to identify elements, who were involved in irregularities.

The committee’s members expressed serious reservations over poor performance of the audit team and observed that certain audit paras against irrigation department were included on poor grounds.

It was pointed out that audit objections worth Rs560 million against irrigation department were rejected. Overall performance of the irrigation department was found satisfactory, the statement said.