The war of words betw-een the bureaucracy and members of the Public Accounts Committee of the state legislature has reached a flash point with each side accusing the other of “lacking accountability.”
The recent meetings of the PAC, where legislators and officers were on a collision course, and their visits to various project sites — during which political issues dominated the deliberations — are a matter of serious concern to many.
Also, at times when PAC members briefed the media verbatim about the otherwise in-camera proceedings, it shocked many, including some senior legislators.
Sources told this newspaper that several senior officers of the rank of special chief secretary and principal secretary complained to their higher ups about some PAC members behaving “rudely” and ill-treating them during the course of discussions.
A senior officer lost his cool when a legislator kept on calling him by his first name, while demanding of him to immediately issue orders cancelling the nod for a power project in a coastal district. “You have no authority to issue such orders to me,” the officer shot back.
Some PAC members are accused of overstepping their jurisdiction while their mandate is to look into the audit objections raised by the CAG as also into the replies given by the respective government departments. In some cases, the members have been raising objections among themselves, allegedly with a view to misleading the people on the proceedings.
A senior Congress member recently objected to some PAC members briefing the media that the PAC took certain decisions on land allotment to industrial projects. In reality, the PAC had taken up only issues relating to the animal husbandry department on that day.
The PAC members (legislators), on the other hand, accuse the officials of avoiding replies to queries related to the CAG report itself. The members were of the view that the officials were thus trying to cover up their follies.
“Who says PAC can’t make recommendations to the government to cancel a particular project or lease to a private company when the state is losing revenues,” asks a first-time Congress legislator who actively participates in the PAC proceedings.
After all, the PAC is accountable to the legislature, which in turn is accountable to the people, he argued.