The annual budget was Rs 517 billion in fiscal year 2013/14, but the accumulated unsettled accounts till that fiscal year stood at Rs 273 billion.
Audit report to name chief of public offices flouting financial...
OAG officials are worried that financial indiscipline cannot be checked if serious intervention is not made in time.
Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the legislature-parliament supports the government in management of unsettled accounts by discussing the issue with officials concerned and giving policy direction when needed.
PAC had devised a time-bound plan of unfolding all audit reports dating back to fiscal year 2005/06 five months ago to discuss the reports and give needful direction to concerned agencies and officials for settlements by April 13. But only a handful of discussions have been held so far.
PAC has formed ten sub-committees to study OAG reports. Of them, only one sub-committee led by lawmaker Ram Hari Khatiwada has started discussion with the concerned officials. Other sub-committees are yet to start discussion.
Pashupati Chaulagain, who heads one of the sub-committees, said he has not been able to give proper time to study and hold discussion on OAG report. He, however, said he was hopeful that the discussion will be completed by the end of this fiscal year.
OAG Spokesperson Babu Ram Gautam expressed dissatisfaction over growing financial impunity in the country. One of the reasons behind this, according to Gautam, is the reluctance of PAC to hold discussion on reports of submitted by OAG.
There was not parliament in the country for about one and half years before the new parliament was elected in November 2013. Previous parliamentary committees did not hold discussion on OAG reports.
Secretaries of the concerned ministries are also chief accounting officers and they have full authority to take action against any financial indiscipline. Likewise, there is also a committee led by chief secretary Leela Mani Paudyal to look into the matters of financial indiscipline.
Talking to Republica, Former Auditor General Bishnu Bahadur KC said that government secretaries are authorized to implement recommendations made by OAC. "But they are not implementing," he said, adding, "Because of this, unsettled accounts are piling up"" KC said, pointing at outstanding revenue worth Rs 107 billion to be recovered in 2013/14 alone.
OAG gives government agencies ample time to settle financial irregularities before publishing its final report. But OAG officials say government officials do not heed to their request of settling accounts by producing supporting documents
There are mainly three types of unsettled accounts -- spending without following due process, spending that needs to be regularized, and misappropriation which needs to be recovered.
KC also takes exception to a practice of regularizing expenditure by the secretaries by simply writing 'the expenditure has not harmed the state' without conducting proper investigations. "Financial misappropriations should be duly recovered from decision makers. It is a crime," said KC.
Lawmaker Khatiwada said that they were mulling over making retired government officials ineligible for political appointments for their failure to maintain financial discipline during their tenure at office.
Gautam also said financial performance should be directly linked to the performance appraisal of civil servants to make the OAG report an effective tool for maintaining financial discipline.
