For instance, the report has dug out cases of a large number of government agencies and public sector institutions procuring goods and making payment to suppliers without due value added tax (VAT) invoice. They have also been found collecting less revenue than what they were supposed to charge.[break]
“Both these actions have been inflicting huge loss in the national treasury,” said Bimala Subedi, deputy auditor general.
Speaking at the meeting of Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Monday, Subedi even noted that all these activities were not new. “Unfortunately, government agencies have neither checked those irregularities nor punished the wrongdoing officials, despite repeated instructions from our side,” she stated.
Officials of the constitutional body entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring financial discipline in government operations lamented over lack of compliance by government offices to their directives and non-implementation of reforms pushed by the institution.
They attributed such a situation to growing indifference of the executive body to maintaining financial discipline, lack of accountability of concerned ministries´ secretaries and weakness on the part of AGO itself.
“Years of operations without auditor general have rendered the institution toothless. This has raised questions over our credibility and also encouraged indiscipline and impunity throughout the system,” added Subedi.
Speaking at the meeting, lawmakers lambasted the government for ignoring the committee´s instructions like settlement of arrears and punishment of officials flouting financial and other rules.
The lawmakers were irked mainly as the 48th annual report of Auditor General´s Office (AGO) showed 37.37 percent rise in arrears in 2009/10, compared to a year ago. The arrears jumped significantly despite its instruction to the government to lower down the figure substantially with high priority.
According to the report, government and public sector institutions´ arrears stood at Rs 25.21 billion in 2009/10. It raised the government´s total unsettled accounts so far to Rs 161.89 billion.
Ministry of Local Development (Rs 4.91 billion), Ministry of Physical Planning and Works (Rs 4.12 billion), Ministry of Education (Rs 3.18 billion), Ministry of Finance (Rs 1.41 billion) and Ministry of Health and Population (Rs 1.13 billion) were the ministries with top five arrears during 2009/10, according to the report. Arrears in these ministries alone made up 78 percent of the total arrears of the fiscal year.
Given the situation, PAC has instructed the government to clear unsettled accounts of the last fiscal year by mid-November 2011. It also urged the government to seriously implement AGO´s suggestions of doing away with existing shortcomings and loopholes.
The committee also called for early appointment of auditor general.
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