Several federal ministries, divisions and departments have not taken any measures to curb financial irregularities and embezzlement, ignoring directives issued by the cabinet and the Auditor-General of Pakistan, according to an audit report.
The report, which covers the government’s accounts for the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2010, suggests that several government departments seem to be engaged in wilful negligence of federal laws on record-keeping, allowing billions of rupees in taxpayer money to be embezzled by corrupt officials, including those within the prime minister’s secretariat.
The alleged corruption took place across nearly all departments of every ministry and normal audit safeguards built into the management of the government’s finances were ignored.
One of the most common irregularities was government purchases of goods and services that were never delivered and cannot be accounted for.
The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Frontier Corps, for example, was supposed to spend Rs13.8 million on buying weapons and ammunition for soldiers. Auditors were able to trace the money moving from the government to that of a private entity, but there is no record of any weapons being purchased.
Auditors within the interior ministry discovered the problem as far back as January 2010, but so far, the money is yet to be recovered.
In some instances, the money which disappeared was not allocated by the federal government but rather deducted from the salaries of government employees, including soldiers. The Frontier Corps, for example, deducted almost Rs60 million in fiscal year 2007 and Rs54 million in fiscal year 2009 from the salaries of soldiers to be allocated towards savings plans and medical expenses. The deduction was not authorised by the finance division and the money has not been traced as yet.
Auditors within the government had once again detected the problem soon after the alleged infractions occurred, but their recommendations were ignored.
On other occasions, the goods being purchased were delivered but were improperly utilised or disappeared altogether. The auditor’s report finds an example of this at the Pakistan Oilseed Development Board, which imported 928,000 germinated palm oil seedlings to be planted on 12,000 acres across Pakistan as part of a project to boost domestic palm oil production and reduce imports.
The seedlings were delivered from Malaysia, but the government can only trace the use of about 168,000 of them. The remaining seedlings, worth nearly $325,000 are missing and remain unaccounted.
Yet other times, government resources are being used by unauthorised personnel. According to the auditor general’s report, six of the 33 bullet-proof vehicles imported for the use of the prime minister are being used by non-government persons over the past two years.
The report states that the abuse of these vehicles continues as the regulations governing them have not been amended to cover bullet-proof vehicles.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 16th, 2011.
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