Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee counted this week what Pakistan’s embassies abroad have lost, misused or left idle across four missions in four countries. The headline figure is Rs165.6 million allegedly taken from the embassy in Vienna, but the oldest case has been with the Federal Investigation Agency for six years without a recovery.
The committee met on Wednesday 4 November under acting chairman Syed Naveed Qamar to review Foreign Office audit objections for 2023-24. Audit officials said the review had uncovered billions of rupees in irregularities at missions abroad, and the Vienna case ended with the FIA director general summoned to the next meeting.
The Vienna case: six years, two FIRs, no recovery
Audit officials told the committee that Salman Qureshi, a former accountant at the embassy in Vienna, allegedly transferred Rs165.6 million into personal bank accounts belonging to himself and his wife. The transfers continued for approximately two years before the matter was referred to the FIA, which registered two first information reports.
The FIA said the accused was arrested but later secured post-arrest bail, and a challan in the anti-money laundering case was recently submitted. Qamar said six years had passed without any significant progress and called the agency’s performance extremely disappointing. “It appears that the FIA only focuses on political cases,” he remarked, according to The News.
Rana Qasim Noon called for action against the FIA as well, while Shazia Marri said the money belonged to Pakistan and the case should serve as an example. The committee directed the foreign secretary to file a fresh inquiry report within 30 days, after discrepancies emerged between the audit’s figures and the Foreign Office’s.
The slow pace follows a familiar pattern in Islamabad, where the JIT report on One Constitution Avenue also showed a wide gap between a detailed report and action. In Vienna, the gap is measured in years: two FIRs, one arrest, one bail, and a challan filed only recently, with no money recovered.
Four missions, one sitting
In Berlin, the embassy took 360,000 euros from the Higher Education Commission’s account as an unauthorised loan, worth more than Rs100 million and still unreturned after over three years. The committee directed the HEC to recover it within three months.
In Bulgaria, audit officials reported alleged embezzlement of Rs29 million. An inquiry launched in September 2026 is delayed because officials could not travel abroad under austerity restrictions, and the committee recommended allowing the necessary travel.
The committee also examined more than Rs1.22 billion in HEC funds held at the embassy in the United States without distribution to students. That money is not alleged to have been stolen, but it is student money sitting idle, alongside questionable community welfare spending in Abu Dhabi and irregularities at missions in Dhaka and Vienna.
The named items come to about Rs295 million in alleged misuse, on top of Rs1.22 billion in student funds left undistributed, while the committee described the wider total as billions of rupees.
The training gap behind the losses
The Auditor General said accounting was a specialised profession needing qualified, trained personnel, and losses of such magnitude could not have resulted from an assistant alone. The foreign secretary said accountants posted abroad received three months of training, and Qamar asked whether that could turn someone into a fully qualified accountant.
The committee directed the Foreign Office to appoint qualified accountants at all missions abroad. The direction matters because the Vienna transfers ran for about two years inside the embassy’s own accounts before anyone outside noticed.
The austerity irony
The Bulgaria item carries its own contradiction: a saving measure is blocking the recovery of a sum many times larger than the travel would cost. The committee recommended an exception, but the inquiry is already stalled while the money sits unprobed.
The same week, the ECC approved Rs359bn in extra grants, a reminder of the scale of public money moving through the system the committee polices. The embassy cases are small beside that figure, but they are the cases where money left the system entirely.
What happens next
Three deadlines now run in parallel: a fresh Vienna report within 30 days, the HEC’s recovery of the Berlin euros within three months, and the FIA director general’s appearance at the next meeting. The committee also demanded compliance reports on all pending mission audit paras.
The test is whether the deadlines are met. The Vienna challan arrived only recently after six years, the Berlin loan has been outstanding for more than three, and the Bulgaria inquiry is already two months old and stalled. Accountability cases that do end in conviction look different: Mazari and Chattha were handed 10-year sentences in October. The next hearing will show whether the summons changes anything. For more national news from Pakistan, follow our national news coverage.
