ISLAMABAD: Pakistan faces a unique situation, becoming one of the only countries of the world to have a temporary appointee looking after the office of auditor general of Pakistan (AGP).

The situation emerged after a controversial summary, moved by the AGP office last week, was prematurely blocked by the Prime Minister’s Office. A replacement summary containing a six-member panel, instead of the four names suggested earlier, could not be approved in time and the erstwhile AGP, Rana Assad Amin, relinquished his charge on April 8.

Consequently, the constitutional position of auditor general is currently held by an individual who has not been administered the oath of office by the chief justice of Pakistan (CJP) — a requirement outlined in Article 168 of the Constitution.

Summing up the situation, an official observed: “There is a legal and constitutional vacuum at [the moment]”.

Stop-gap appointee cannot approve accounts, certify donor-funded projects

Sources privy to the development said the revised summary included two new names: Shagufta Khanum — a grade 22 audit and accounts officer who was ignored in the summary moved from the AGP’s office last week. A former officer of the same group, Asif, has also been included.

Meanwhile, Haq Nawaz — another grade 22 officer from the Audit and Accounts group — has been verbally asked to “look after” the AGP office. Mr Nawaz is due to retire by the end of this month upon reaching the age of 60.

A person temporarily appointed to look after the AGP office cannot perform constitutional duties and actions because he/she is not authorised to approve the accounts of the federation, provincial governments or their various agencies.

Neither is a temporary appointee empowered to forward annual reports to the president and parliament for debate and approval.

In the absence of a full-time auditor general, the AGP office also cannot issue certificates of accounts for more than 300 projects and programmes, funded by international agencies such as the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, USAID or UN agencies.

The panel now forwarded to the President Office for selection contains the four most senior officers of the Accounts and Audit group and two of their retired seniors. These include Parveen Agha, Haq Nawaz, Imran Iqbal, Shagufta Khanum (serving officers) and Javed Jehangir and Mr Asif (retired officers).

Mr Iqbal will be completing 60 years in 10 months, while Ms Agha and Ms Khanum have about 18 months before retirement. Any officer who is selected to the post gets a couple of additional years of service, because the maximum age for the AGP is 65 years, or four years of tenure, whichever comes first.

This also makes Pakistan the only member of the 199-state International Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (Intosai) to not have a full-time auditor general. Since Pakistan’s AGP currently leads Intosai as its secretary general —– the Turkish auditor is the current president — this development is even more embarrassing.

Published in Dawn, April 11th, 2017