Embezzling funds: Govt watchdog takes Public Health Engineering department to task

The PAC showed concern over frozen water and sanitation schemes.

KARACHI: Even though 42 years have passed, the audit department has failed to clear the accounts of the Public Health Engineering department, which show large aberrations in its use of allocated funds.

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) met here on Thursday and was informed of the misappropriation of funds by officials in the Public Health Engineering department. Out of Rs21 million allotted to it from 2006 to 2009, the department has only successfully managed to account for Rs0.8 million. The outstanding amount has been embezzled.

The meeting was presided over by the chairman of the PAC, Jam Tamachi Unar. The director-general of the audit, Ghulam Akbar Sohu, raised the issue of the non-adjustment of public works and said that an amount of Rs12.668 million was transferred in the account of the executive engineer of public health in Khairpur in 1969.

He said that the issue had been raised many times at PAC meetings. At each of them, the officials from the Public Health Engineering department claimed that they had completed projects with the funds allotted to them, but did not have a record of this.

The additional secretary of the Public Health Engineering department said that they had produced the records earlier and the audit teams had also verified them. But Sohu disagreed with this. “Those records do not sufficiently account for the usage of funds,” he said.

Later in the meeting, the para (audit concern) was partially settled and Unar directed the officials of the Public Health Engineering department to bring a complete record at the next meeting.

Sohu said that officials of the department have failed to produce a record of Rs38 million. “The amount was spent in different schemes in Ghotki, Sanghar and Tando Adam in 2008, but officials failed to produce records of the expenditure. Therefore, it is possible that the funds were misappropriated,” he said.

Unar directed the secretary of the PAC to inform the minister of public health and engineering and the chief secretary about the issue.

The chairman also expressed his concern over the water and sanitation schemes, which are being held in abeyance. “Million of rupees have been spent on the schemes, but no one seems to be concerned about executing them properly. There is no one to monitor these schemes either,” he said. Sub-standard material is being utilized in these schemes, which has left 80% of them non-functional in rural areas, added Unar.

The secretary of the Public Health Engineering department responded to this by saying that it was the duty of district and town municipal administrations to execute the scheme and monitor them. “Our role is curtailed to designing a scheme,” he said. The Public Health Engineering department used to be responsible for monitoring schemes after their launch, but after the Local Government system was introduced in 2001, this authority was handed over to the districts.

To another question he said that they have not launched a new scheme this year and total number of ongoing schemes stands at around 160.

The officials of audit department also raised the issue of excess expenditure and said that Rs1.24 million have been used for the construction of pavements, drains and roads in Larkana, Jacobabad and Mirpurkhas in 2008-9. “They spent the excess amount without the approval of the authority,” said the officials of the audit department.

Since Public Health Engineering officials failed to provide proper record, the para (audit concern) was deferred and Unar directed officials to get approval for the excess amount before the audit starts.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 18^th,  2011.