PAC tells foreign ministry to tighten accounting over mission fund abuse
The committee said staff in overseas missions were embezzling public money without accountability and ordered new secretary Asim Iftikhar Ahmad to send it revised rules.
A parliamentary committee has told the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to rewrite its accounting rules and hand the new procedures to the committee, after concluding the ministry has no control over how public money is spent in Pakistan's missions abroad.
The Public Accounts Committee issued the instruction to the ministry's new secretary, Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, at a meeting on Wednesday, Dawn reported.
The committee took up the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' audit objections for 2024-25. During that review it observed that staff posted in foreign missions were embezzling and mismanaging public funds without accountability, according to the report.
Members criticised the ministry for lax accounting procedures and for having no control over funds management. Ahmad was told to streamline and tighten the procedures, frame rules and share them with the committee.
Dawn's account of the meeting did not name any mission or official under scrutiny and gave no figure for the amount of money involved. The report also did not say whether any case had been referred for disciplinary action or prosecution.
The committee's directive leaves the next step with the ministry: the rules it frames are to come back to the committee.
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