Irregularities worth billions in CAA pension funds unearthed

KARACHI: Financial irregularities worth billions have unearthed in the pension funds of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), ARY News reported citing a report of the Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) on Wednesday.

A report of the Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) unearthed the financial irregularities worth billions in the CAA pension funds. It revealed that funds worth Rs47 billion were deposited in different banks in the name of investments through pensions.

The report read that the officers of the CAA Finance Directorate deposited a huge sum of pension money without getting prior permission from the higher authorities.

It also exposed that the amount of deposited money in the banks had exceeded the required limit of investments which was Rs4 to Rs6 billion.

The AGP report read that no response was submitted by the CAA officers when being contacted during the audit. The Auditor General of Pakistan recommended to launch an investigation against the officers of the CAA’s finance department.

In July 2020, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) had detected the violations of the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) rules in its advertisement contracts to different newspapers.

The irregularities were revealed by CAA director finance Shahid Ali in its letter sent to subordinate departments. It is revealed that violations of PPRA rules had been made in ads for purchases and contracts of the aviation authority.

It read that the rules were not followed while awarding some of the ad contracts to the newspapers which have low circulation bracket. He said that awarding ad contracts to those newspapers went against the interests of the institution and PPRA rules.

He asked concerned departments to publish CAA advertisements of its tenders, notices and offers in two popular newspapers in future, otherwise, the finance department will not make financial approval of the projects besides taking legal action.