Hole in NHA’s pocket actually worth Rs450m

Authority’s chief says loopholes in fine collection partially responsible for pilferage

ISLAMABAD: Defending discrepancies in their records over the past 19 years as pointed out by the office of the Auditor General of Pakistan, the National Highway Authority (NHA) and the Motorway Police have said that the actual difference between the fines imposed and those collected by the police for traffic violations is Rs450 million.

This was disclosed by senior officials of the NHA and the National Highways and Motorway Police (NHMP) during a meeting of a parliamentary committee, which took up the issue after a report was published pointing discrepancies worth around Rs2 billion between the fines imposed by the NHMP and those collected by the NHA.

The Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP), in an audit report, had found that the NHMP had imposed fines worth Rs19.704 billion over the past 19 years for traffic violations. However, the NHA, responsible for collecting the fines, had only shown that it received Rs17.676 billion. The AGP had raised an objection over the unaccounted for amount and recommended an inquiry into it.

On Tuesday, NHA Chairman Shahid Ashraf Tarar told the National Assembly Standing Committee on Communications that the actual difference in the unaccounted for amount was Rs450 million.



Tarar explained the difference as expenditure – from the ticket money - on operations and maintenance (O&M) of the fine collection mechanism, something the audit did not take into consideration.

“If we take out the O&M charges worth Rs1.578 billion, the difference comes down to Rs450 million which is yet to be reconciled,” he explained.

Noting that his explanation still left a substantial hole in NHA’s pockets, Tarar accepted that there was some pilferage of ticket money, but blamed it on road users instead of the authorities.

He added that there were loopholes in the earlier collection mechanism, due to which some road users who had been fined, found a way around it.

“The previous practice on Motorways was that a road user would be issued a card by a patrol officer over a violation and would submit the fine along with the toll at the end of their journey. Some drivers would say that they had lost the card and the toll collection staff would let them go,” he explained the “pilferage issue.” Tarar said the issue had been resolved after the NHA introduced a new fine collection mechanism under which the fines were collected at the spot.

“It was not a systematic failure … rather it is an issue of reconciliation which is an ongoing process.”

The NHMP Rules 2007 state that the fine money would be reconciled between the two authorities on a monthly basis, and the audit objected was that the shortfall or non-reconciliation of the ticket amount continued for years without any check.

The lawmakers were satisfied when Tarar repeatedly told them that the actual difference, Rs450 million, was only around a percentage of the total Rs19.7 billion fines. It was only later that they realised that it was actually 2.2 per cent of the total amount.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 27^th, 2017.