LAHORE:
The government is about to finalise a charge-sheet against National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) Chairman Tariq Malik for alleged misappropriation and irregularities.

Sources privy to the matter, as well as documents available with The Express Tribune, reveal that an audit team – on the wishes of National Assembly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq and Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan – has prepared a 14-point charge-sheet against the NADRA chief.

The charge-sheet was submitted against Malik in the speaker’s chamber on Thursday. Sadiq had not only contacted the commercial audit director general but also approached the concerned audit officer for the report.
According to sources, the audit officer, after preparing the requisite reports and documents about the irregularities, handed them over to the speaker’s chamber in the National Assembly.

Sadiq’s secretary received the summary along with four requisitions regarding the supply of record/information for conducting the audit, earlier sent by the audit department to NADRA on July 8, 11, 29 and 31, documents say.
A copy of the charge sheet is available with The Express Tribune. It comprises 14-paras titled ‘Audit of the accounts of NADRA against Tariq Malik and other concerned official(s)’ and makes serious allegations against Malik.

According to sources privy to the development, the government plans to implicate Malik and move the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) or the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to initiate a probe against him.
After reinstatement of Tariq Malik by Islamabad High Court (IHC), Ayaz Sadiq contacted the Directorate of Commercial Audit’s DG. Sources state that Sadiq first asked him to immediately provide all requisitions which the audit department had sent to NADRA on various occasions. Then he instructed him to immediately forward the details of irregularities which the audit team present at NADRA headquarters had collected so far against Malik.

Ayaz Sadiq also asked the DG and audit officer to send a “wishful brief summary” against Tariq Malik to his office, which is a violation of the prescribed procedure of audit reports.

According to the procedure, the audit report of any department can neither be finalised nor leaked without getting a reply from the concerned department, ministry and only after it is presented before parliament.

In this case, the NA speaker forced the audit department’s officials to submit audit observations before his and the interior minister’s offices without following the laid down procedure. He also forced them to complete their work in a hurry, sources revealed.

Talking to The Express Tribune, Tariq Malik said the audit team had not shared the 14 audit paras (observations) with NADRA despite the fact that it was contrary to the rules and regulations.

Source