Watchdog to seek govt’s help in battling misappropriation of funds by universities

A large chunk of money was spent on unauth­orised medica­l allowa­nces.

KARACHI: The Public Accounts Committee has had it with the mismanagement of funds by Sindh universities – it has decided to ask the provincial government to help deal with those responsible for the mess.

During a meeting held at the Sindh Assembly Secretariat on Thursday, the chairman of the committee, Jam Tamachi Unar, said that the standards of many public universities were waning and their administrations were too busy misappropriating funds to do anything about it.

Around 20 deferred points regarding the Sindh University, Jamshoro and Quaid-e-Awam University of Engineering Science and Technology, Benazirababad for the years 2006-7, 2007-8 and 2008-9, were discussed. The amount audited was around Rs81 million, most of which was spent on equipment without inviting tenders and unauthorised medial allowances. “Only Rs18 million has been recovered so far,” said the director-general of the audit, Ghulam Akbar Soho.

In violation of the rules, Sindh University had paid Rs3.5 million to its employees as advance in 2006-7.  The acting vice chancellor of the university, Prof. Parveen Shah, said that this amount has now been recovered. “Why were you so late in recovering the amount? This should have been done by the end of the same financial year,” said a member of the committee, Aamir Moin Pirzada.

The university had also spent an excess of about Rs19.4 million as medical allowance to its employees. “This amount needs to be recovered,” Soho said while referring to rules of the finance department. The official rate of medical allowance is Rs425 per month for officers from grades one to 15 but the university had paid them Rs1,000 to Rs2,000. The point was deferred and the university was asked to recover the amount from its employees. The committee ordered its secretary to write a letter to the governor and ask him to form a uniform policy for medical allowance for all universities.

Soho said that Quaid-e-Awam University of Engineering Science and Technology, Benazirababad had purchased various items worth Rs0.464 million, but there were no documents to support this. He added that in the previous meeting the committee had asked the vice chancellor to demand an explanation from the employees responsible, but nothing has been done so far.
The vice chancellor said that the person responsible had left and joined Mehran University. The committee directed him to pursue the case and recover the amount till the next meeting. The director-general of the audit said that Rs8.997 million was paid as advance by the administration of the university in 2007-8, but this has not been recovered. “Whenever we ask them about the recovery of the amount, the administration claim that they have recovered it but are not willing to produce any evidence,” he said. The vice chancellor assured the committee that he will recover the amount till next meeting.

The Quaid-e-Awam University had paid Rs2.27 million to contractors without the approval of the vice chancellor or other competent authority in 2008-9. The vice chancellor had brought copies of the documents with him, but the committee expressed doubts about their authenticity and asked him to bring the papers.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 25^th, 2012.