A subcommittee of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has exposed a major irregularity in the Prime Minister’s Laptop Scheme (Phase-II), revealing that more than 1,000 laptops went missing.
Audit officials told the committee that 1,011 laptops were either stolen or remained untraceable. So far, 784 have been recovered, but 227 are still missing. The unaccounted laptops amount to losses of nearly Rs. 12 million for the national exchequer.
Despite the scale of the irregularity, officials noted that no action has been taken against those responsible.
HEC response and ongoing probe
The Higher Education Commission (HEC) clarified that earlier reports had flagged discrepancies in 179 laptops. That number has since been revised to 143, though further investigations remain underway in Karachi and at Government Sadiq College Women’s University in Bahawalpur.
The PAC has directed the authorities to recover the missing laptops within a month. If the recovery fails, the committee warned that the financial losses will be recovered directly from individuals found guilty of negligence or misconduct.
