The Public Accounts Committee has formally ordered the Cabinet Division to deliver an extensive, in-depth report exploring a series of severe technical and financial discrepancies tied to National Engineering Services Pakistan. This administrative directive mandates the immediate execution of targeted, high-level structural and accounting probes across multiple major infrastructure initiatives. Among the most prominent matters under investigation are the massive financial damages sustained by the national exchequer due to allegedly defective engineering consultancy operations on the 43 billion rupee Neelum Jhelum Hydropower Project.
Providing a direct update to the oversight committee, the Secretary of the Cabinet Division, Kamran Ali Afzal, confirmed that a rigorous investigation at the apex level of the federal administration is currently underway regarding the troubled Neelum Jhelum facility. The senior official provided firm assurances to the Public Accounts Committee Chairman, Syed Naveed Qamar, that every operational failure and technical oversight would be comprehensively detailed within the impending final report. These intensive discussions occurred during a high-level assembly gathered specifically to scrutinize unresolved federal audit objections raised against the Cabinet Division for the fiscal year 2024-25.
The structural history of the Neelum Jhelum power generation facility reveals a pattern of persistent operational failures that have severely impacted the national energy grid. The strategic plant was forced to completely cease its operations back in July 2022 following a catastrophic collapse of its primary tailrace tunnel, after which the physical assets were transferred to the Neelum Jhelum Hydro Power Company Private Limited. While engineering teams managed to temporarily revive power generation, the facility operated for only five to six months before experiencing a second structural collapse in May 2024. Since that second incident, all power generation activities at the site have remained entirely suspended. State auditors have calculated that an estimated loss of 42.9 billion rupees has been racked up due to lost generation capacity and the ongoing, highly complex physical restoration works. The audit report places the blame for these immense financial setbacks squarely on substandard workmanship and deeply flawed consultancy practices overseen by Nespak, an entity that was intimately embedded in every single phase of the asset’s development, from initial architectural design to live construction supervision.
Compounding these energy-sector challenges, the committee turned its attention to separate audit objections detailing alleged fraudulent verifications carried out by the state engineering firm while supervising a major infrastructure initiative for the Federal Government Employees Housing Authority at Park Road in Islamabad. This particular administrative breakdown resulted in a wave of unauthorized national treasury disbursements totaling 1.4 billion rupees. The Office of the Auditor General of Pakistan presented detailed findings during the session, demonstrating that a designated resident engineer wrongly certified the actual volume and value of physical construction completed by private contractors on-site.
This erroneous technical certification directly triggered the unjustified release of substantial mobilization advances alongside unverified interim payment certificates. The investigative findings revealed a deeper layer of corporate deception, noting that the contracted firms had managed to submit entirely counterfeit bank guarantees. Despite these fraudulent financial instruments, the state consultant went ahead and formally approved the first three consecutive interim payment certificates, valued at the aforementioned 1.4 billion rupees. In response to these alarming findings, the Cabinet Secretary informed the legislative watchdog that a rigorous internal process is actively moving forward to pinpoint individual culpability and hold the negligent professionals legally responsible.
Finally, the federal audit team brought forward evidence of highly problematic international operations managed by a foreign subsidiary of the company located in the Middle East. The ongoing, financially unviable commercial operations of the Qatari subsidiary have inflicted an immediate loss of 874.4 million rupees on the parent group, alongside the non-recovery of outstanding receivables valued at 664 million rupees. Corporate records show that the management originally established this overseas corporate wing, known as Nespak-WLL Qatar, back in 2009. However, the most recently audited financial reports for the fiscal year 2022-23 indicate that the international venture has been trapped in a continuous cycle of operational deficits, causing its total accumulated financial losses to swell to a staggering 1.8 billion rupees over time.
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