The Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP) has come under intense scrutiny following severe financial and administrative irregularities unearthed by the Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP). According to the formal audit report compiled for the fiscal cycle of 2025–26, the apex export promotion body faced comprehensive audit objections totaling Rs. 3.656 billion during the preceding financial year (FY2024–25). The multi-billion-rupee discrepancies stem primarily from unrecovered dues, systemic internal control failures, flawed commercial bank account management, and extensive procurement and administrative lapses. The federal audit emphasized that TDAP—which was established to replace the legacy Export Promotion Bureau—has consistently fallen short of basic statutory obligations and standardized financial management practices. A granular analysis of the Rs. 3.656 billion in audit objections reveals that the single largest operational friction point involves a failure to execute recoveries exceeding Rs. 1.6 billion. Furthermore, the audit team identified Rs. 1.36 billion tied to deep institutional control weaknesses and over Rs. 513 million directly linked to the mismanagement and irregular utilization of commercial bank holdings.
At the center of the corporate governance failure is TDAP’s persistent non-compliance with its own foundational legislation. The AGP noted that the authority failed to prepare mandatory, standardized financial statements—including balance sheets, comprehensive income statements, and cash flow records—within the timeline legally prescribed under the TDAP Act, 2013. While TDAP management countered that independent external auditors were actively working to compile the delayed statements for FY2024–25, the audit department dismissed the explanation as entirely inadequate, warning that the complete absence of finalized, audited books severely degrades public transparency and institutional accountability. The investigation also flagged the legally questionable retention of Rs. 513.615 million generated directly from commercial operations at the Karachi Expo Centre. Statutorily, all operational revenues originating from state-managed facilities must be deposited cleanly into the centralized, official TDAP Fund. Instead, the administration maintained these cash receipts in a commercial bank account with the National Bank of Pakistan, pulling Rs. 400.625 million straight from that pool to cover day-to-day corporate overheads like facility maintenance, utilities, and private security. Despite management’s argument that the authority possesses a generalized legal right to open external bank accounts, the AGP maintained that bypassing the official TDAP Fund to finance operational expenses directly out of commercial deposits constitutes a direct violation of federal fiscal protocols.
Beyond account misallocation, the report highlighted distinct leakages that resulted in preventable losses for the national exchequer, such as unbilled facility usage where TDAP incurred a direct revenue loss of Rs. 29.546 million by failing to charge exhibitors for additional setup and dismantling windows at the Karachi Expo Centre. Most notably, the Defence Export Promotion Organisation utilized the exhibition halls far beyond standard allowed timelines, yet TDAP failed to bill the extra days at the mandatory 50% standard penalty rate. Similarly, unresolved utility liabilities showed that the authority accumulated outstanding liabilities worth Rs. 24.163 million due to persistent non-payment of water utility charges to the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board, which management blamed on non-functional pipelines and ongoing billing disputes despite auditors noting that no formal reconciliation or settlement efforts had been prioritized. Furthermore, the AGP identified procurement-related irregularities exceeding Rs. 144 million, pointing to systemic cracks in procurement documentation compliance, transparency guidelines, and basic financial oversight.
Compounding these current violations is TDAP’s historically poor track record regarding legislative oversight, as the audit highlighted an ongoing disregard for Public Accounts Committee (PAC) directives. Out of 92 historical audit paragraphs tracked from prior consecutive fiscal years, only a tiny fraction have been comprehensively resolved by the authority, leaving the vast majority completely unaddressed. To correct the trajectory, the AGP issued an urgent blueprint demanding the immediate production of audited financial balance sheets, the swift transfer of all commercial bank revenues directly into the official TDAP Fund, and a complete overhaul of internal account reconciliation practices. Crucially, the federal watchdog has called for the immediate initialization of a formal inquiry to fix exact administrative responsibility on the specific officials involved in these systemic irregularities.
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