Irregularities or corruption?

The Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) has come up with a charge-sheet against the previous government — of the PML-N. In a report presented before parliament, the chief auditor has pointed out irregularities in the use of public funds, worth more than Rs15.67 trillion, by the federal ministries and divisions. The funds audited pertain to the fiscal year 2017-18 which is described as audit year 2018-19. For the sake of comparison, the amount that attracted audit objections is more than twice as much as the total outlay of the country for the ongoing fiscal year, which is Rs7.02 trillion. Furthermore, the amount in question is equivalent to a staggering hundred billion dollars — equivalent to our total external debt.

The AGP report, also submitted to the President of Pakistan, is based on the scrutiny of public funds of 40 out of 50 federal ministries and divisions and does not cover amounts less than Rs1 million. The regularities, according to the audit report, came in the shape of violation of rules and regulations, weaknesses of internal control, misappropriation or overpayment of public funds as well as negligence. As against the huge irregularities of Rs15.67 trillion, the reported cases of fraud and misuse of public money only account for a meagre Rs862 million. It’s because big wasted amounts are considered irregular and unauthorised rather than misappropriated, in view of a number of unforeseen expenditures like increase in exchange rate and increase on interest repayment on loans. Such big amounts are, thus, eventually regularised by the Public Accounts Committee.

Such a big waste of public funds in a cash-strapped country like ours is simply intolerable. As recommended by the audit report, all cases of embezzlement of public money and fictitious payments should be sent for investigation. As a foremost measure to mitigate the risk, internal control system needs to be strengthened as a weak internal control has led to the waste of Rs14.56 trillion which forms the bulk of the total worth of irregularities.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 21^st, 2019.

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