ISLAMABAD: The Public Accounts Committee has recommended an increase in the salaries of the National Highways and Motorway Police and payment of full salary to families of martyrs of the Motorway Police.

The Public Accounts Committee meeting was held under the chair of Noor Alam Khan, in which audit paras of Ministry of Communication related to National Highway Authority (NHA) for the financial year 2019-20 were examined. During the meeting, IG Motorway Sultan Khawaja, in a briefing to the PAC, demanded an increase in salaries and the implementation of the Shuhada package.

The IG Motorway said that the amount of fines should also be increased to ensure law enforcement on the Motorway.

Chairman PAC Noor Alam Khan said that be it Army, Rangers, FC or Motorway Police, there will be no compromise on martyrs. “The families of martyrs must get salary, and their children’s education should also be free,” he said. The chairman PAC directed the secretary Communications to prepare a summary for a raise in the salaries of Motorway Police.

The IG Motorways said that an additional basic salary given at the time of creation of the Motorway Police has been abolished. He added that the salary of the Motorway police officers was lower than that of all provincial police officers,” he told the committee.

He said a financial assistance was announced to the families of the martyrs but they have not received any assistance yet. The audit officials in the audit report of the NHA for the FY19-20 pointed out irregularities of Rs.3 97 billion in NHA.

Examining the audit para, the audit official pointed out the irregularities of Rs1.4 billion in N50 Zhob Mughal Koat-Khali Khudainazar Road upgradation project.

According to the audit officials, the contractor benefited from poor planning by the engineers. Examining another audit para, the audit told the committee that an advance payment of Rs1.5 billion was made to contractors on conditional bank guarantee in nine NHA projects.

The audit officials told the committee that despite the advance payment of billions of rupees without bank guarantee, the projects were delayed and NHA gave unfair advantage to the contractors.

The NHA apprised the committee that the contactor had misused the project funds due to lack of interest and planning of the engineer concerned. The PAC observed that the NHA had given undue favours to the contractor in the project and directed the relevant authority to recover the looted amount from him.

The NA panel took notice of the dilapidated condition of Peshawar and Sialkot Motorways. The committee also directed to improve load management on motorways and also expressed concern over non-appointment of the chairman NHA.

Chairman PAC Noor Alam Khan directed the communication ministry to initiate an inquiry into poor construction of Peshawar Motorway. The committee members also raised questions on the status of Sialkot Motorway, saying that the condition of Sialkot Motorway was also worse.