PAC issues directions to audit ISI & IB Secrets funds by AGP

PAC issues directions to audit ISI & IB Secrets funds by AGP

ISLMABAD: In a never before step in the history of Pakistan. Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has directed Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) to get permission for conducting audit of secret services funds of Pakistan main spy agencies ISI and IB.

 Public Accounts Committee issued such directions when the Auditor General of Pakistan Rana Amin said Attorney General of Pakistan has barred them from giving rulings to carry out audit of spy agencies including ISI and IB secret funds accounts in the wake of amendments in the law enacted in 2014 by the incumbent federal government of Nawaz Sharif.

Public Accounts Committee chairman Khurshid Shah also advised the auditor general of Pakistan to file a contempt of court case in the Supreme Court of Pakistan for seeking fresh guidelines and interpretation of the laws which barred the audit of secret funds accounts of sensitive institutions of the country.

AGP also divulged before a jam-packed PAC meeting that the Supreme Court, in a landmark judgment, also permitted and ordered the Auditor General to conduct an audit of all public money, and said no institution was above the law. He said before the 2014 audit of IB secret services funds was conducted that the report was confidential and only two senior officers of AG office are privy to the report.

AGP said that the Supreme Court had already asked the government to abolish secret services fund from all ministries of federal government due to its misuse and added now only two government organisations, ISI and IB, had secret service funds.

The NADRA chairman admitted that some miscreant officers of NADRA were involved in fake identity cards scam but now a foolproof system had been set up to discourage such elements from playing havoc with the security of the country.

The proposal to give power of verification of ID forms to parliamentarian has been shelved as it had been declared unfeasible, the interior secretary said.