Bureaucrats have questioned the Public Accounts Committee’s (PAC’s) jurisdiction to demand dues from them for using a Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) government helicopter.
The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had earlier submitted to a list of 1,800 unauthorised users of the KP government helicopter to the PAC. These included Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan, former federal ministers, PTI leaders, government officials and journalists who caused the national exchequer to lose over Rs6.3 billion. The PAC perused the list and directed the NAB to recover dues from all unauthorised users of the helicopter.
According to The Express Tribune, bureaucrats said the directive went beyond PAC’s jurisdiction.
A senior civil servant was quoted as saying that the flights undertaken were of official nature and they did not use the helicopter for rest and recreation. “We were mostly asked to accompany the chief minister on official visits.”
