PAC Member Orders Audit of Private Channels That Aired Live Matches

A meeting of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) was held under the chairmanship of Member of National Assembly (MNA) Noor Alam Khan in Islamabad today.

MNA Sheikh Rohale Asghar asked the PAC Chairman to summon the audit report on Islamabad Club, as well as private channels that profited from televising live matches.

The committee reviewed the matter for audit of various institutions including the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA), National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) and Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL).

Recently, the PAC committee had written a letter to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on the non-audit of the ministries and subsidiaries. Subsequently, the PM took notice of the PAC’s proposal and last week ordered a full audit of all institutions.

At today’s PAC session, Noor Alam Khan reprimanded Chairman NEPRA and said that performance and regulatory audits are essential under the Constitution and it was at PAC’s discretion to order such exercises whenever required.

The committee ordered to conduct the performance audit of NEPRA and recommended that the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) assists in the process.

MNA Sheikh Rohale Asghar asked Chairman PAC to ask for an update on the audit report on Islamabad Club which the PAC Chairman had recently ordered to be submitted within a week. He again requested for the report to be presented before the committee and urged facilitation from relevant stakeholders in this regard.

Asghar briefly discussed a big financial scandal in Pakistan Television Corporation (PTV), while in the case of private channels, he said they benefitted substantially from telecasting live matches. In this regard, he requested that an audit report should be filed and presented to the committee as soon as possible.