LAHORE: The Supreme Court on Saturday asked a chartered accountancy firm, A.F. Ferguson, to carry out a forensic audit of Pakistan Railways to find out reasons behind colossal losses the department has faced during the past five years and submit its report within six weeks.

As the suo motu case pertaining to huge losses of railways came up for hearing, Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar took notice of the absence of Federal Railways Minister Khawaja Saad Rafique and summoned him.

While appearing before the court after some time, the minister requested the CJP to order the audit of railways for a period of 10 years rather than five years to have a comparison of the performance of the incumbent government with the predecessor.

However, the chief justice turned down the request observing that the exercise of “audit is preferably made for the accountability of people in power.”

Minister’s request for 10-year audit turned down, as CJP seeks reason for huge losses since 2013

Addressing the chief justice, the minister said railways workers would be disheartened as they had put a lot of efforts to lift their department. CJP Nisar advised Mr Rafique to skip the word “honourable” when he used it more than once while addressing the top judge. “It is better to avoid using such words if there is no respect from the heart,” the chief justice observed.

The minister claimed that he had complete regard for judges and had always addressed the “honourable chief justice” in the same manner even outside the court. Mr Rafique also spoke some sentences in Punjabi “to show respect for the judges”.

Earlier, a member of the railways finance department informed the apex court that the department had faced losses to the tune of Rs163 billion during the past five years. He added that the railways had generated a total revenue of Rs180bn.

On April 7, the chief justice had taken a suo motu notice of the financial losses faced by Pakistan Railways and summoned its minister.

Saaf Pani

The chief executive officer of the Punjab Saaf Pani Company, retired captain Mohammad Usman, informed Chief Justice Nisar that he had taken the charge of Lahore DCO just a day before the Model Town incident.

He said that the government appointed him as CEO of the Punjab Saaf Pani Company, a public sector company, following a lawful procedure and competition.

CJP Nisar asked him if he had any experience relevant to water projects while expressing concern over a hefty salary package being given to the company head. He also had questioned him if he was “DCO in Lahore when Model Town incident took place?” Mr Usman said: “I had taken charge one day before the incident.”

The chief justice observed that government servants appointed as heads of public sector companies had just exploited the system.

He directed all public servants working as heads of public sector companies to return the money over and above their regular salaries to the government within one month.

Earlier, Punjab Advocate General Shakilur Rehman Khan told the court that the company was yet to engage a counsel in the case, while the company’s CEO sought more time to file a report about company’s working, expenditure and staff salaries.

The chief justice later adjour­ned the hearing for one week.

Published in Dawn, April 29th, 2018