ISLAMABAD: The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the National Assembly directed the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) on Tuesday to stop the payment of allowances and other expenses to all its officials till the framing of service rules by the authority.

Syed Naveed Qamar, convener of a sub-committee of the PAC, issued the directive after the scrutiny of audit paras relating to Irsa.

Audit officials informed the PAC that since its inception in 1992, Irsa had not framed the service rules for its officials. The authority has been paying different allowances to its officials and also purchasing vehicles in an “irregular” manner.

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The authority has never formulated service rules

Irsa Chairman Mohammad Raqib Khan requested the committee not to stop the payment and said the framing of rules was in process and likely to be completed in a couple of months.

But Mr Qamar said he wondered how Irsa could frame the rules in weeks when it had failed to do so over the past 20 years.

The audit officials were of the opinion that the committee could not grant such relief to the authority.

The Irsa chairman said the authority had approached the water and power ministry in 2000 for framing of rules and also forwarded a draft to the Cabinet Division in 2005. According to him, the Cabinet Division had allowed the authority to frame its own rules.

He assured the committee that Irsa would finalise the rules in a couple of months and send the same to the law and justice ministry through the water and power ministry.

PAYMENT TO CONTRACTOR: The audit officials also raised a para regarding the payment of Rs3.2 billion to the contractor of Ghazi Barotha hydropower project in the fiscal year 2003-04.

Wapda Chairman Zafar Mehmood informed the committee that the contractor had left the project unfinished after the 9/11 attacks in the United States. “This resulted in an unexpected delay due to which the cost of the project had to be increased,” he said.

He said Wapda had evolved a strategy to avoid such situation in future.

When the committee asked the Wapda chairman to share the details of the strategy with it, he said he would come up with these in a month.

Published in Dawn, March 11th, 2015

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