“These officials are minting public money believing that the government budget is their personal fund,” said the audit director-general Ghulam Akbar Sohu.
The Sindh Assembly’s public accounts committee was informed on Friday that bureaucrats are so powerful that the audit teams are reluctant to point out any irregularities they conduct.
“These officials are minting public money believing that the government budget is their personal fund,” said the audit director-general Ghulam Akbar Sohu. The meeting on Friday was presided over by the committee’s chairperson Jam Tamachi Unar, who was reviewing the audit of Shaheed Benazirabad district government for the year 2010 and 2011. Responding to Sohu’s remarks, Benazirabad’s deputy commissioner Rashid Ahmed Zardari said that the bureaucrats alone cannot be held responsible for negligence. “Audit officials also use different tactics to get bribes from district government officials,” he said.
The audit officials also informed that the district government had paid Rs475,000 to legal adviser Ziaul Hassan Lanjar, an advocate of the Sindh High Court in 2010-2011 to attend different cases of the district nazim secretariat. The deputy commissioner responded, however, by saying that the then district nazim had the authority to sanction that amount for any matter.
Nevertheless, the audit official insisted that the amount was released against the rules. Unar directed his secretary to refer the case to the finance department so they can confirm whether or not any rules were broken.
New dispensaries
The audit director-general also raised the issue of irregular expenditures worth Rs51 million to build new dispensaries in the district. He said that the district government has established the dispensaries out of the budget without getting an approval by the chief minister (CM).
“They are giving the impression that the district nazim is more powerful than the CM, whose orders are being flouted,” said Sohu. The deputy commissioner responded that as per the Sindh Local Government Ordinance, 2001, the district government had the authority to approve new schemes. A public accounts committee member, Aamir Moin Pirzado insisted on seeing the CM’s permission but he was unable to present any document. The audit was then deferred till the next meeting.
The committee also learned that Benazirabad district spent Rs2.7 million to buy medicines for patients, but there are no proper records to verify the purchases.
Later, the audit deputy director, Ahtram Rasool Kazmi later told the media that a total of 16 audit paras were discussed at the meeting and the audit team pointed out anomalies of Rs114 million in the accounts of the district government.
The district officials managed to justify their expenses worth Rs53 million for seven audit paras and promised to produce the records for the rest of them by the next meeting.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 23rd, 2013.
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