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| January 29, 2002 | Tuesday | Ziqa’ad 14, 1422 |
WB seeks effective review of SAP funds
PESHAWAR, Jan 28: The World Bank wants the NWFP to establish an effective process for reviewing the accounts of the schemes being funded under the Social Action Programme with an aim to check corruption.
“The Bank authorities want the NWFP government to ensure an effective review of SAP-funded schemes’ accounts,” said a senior government source. “They (the WB) are not satisfied with the accounts of SAP-funded schemes.”
Observations to this effect were made by one of the WB’s missions that visited Pakistan last year to hold inquiry into the misappropriation of funds at SAP and financial bungling, according to official documents. The mission had observed that “the lack of a review process led to the misappropriation and mismanagement (of SAP funds).”
Similarly, on the basis of information gathered during their visit to the NWFP, the mission had observed that during the operation and implementation stages funds had been misappropriated.
The World Bank authorities, official sources said, had also raised questions about the quality of reports submitted by those auditing accounts of the SAP-funded schemes for financial years 1996-2000. The mission, said the sources, had termed the audit reports a “weak area” and asked for improving its standards.
The mission, said the sources, had also expressed dissatisfaction over the monitoring and supervision system of the SAP departments, including health, education, public health engineering and communication, and works.
Terming the monitoring system inadequate, the mission had observed that these departments had not even maintained record of public complaints and actions taken on them.
The mission had asked for the framing of standardized procedures for various areas, including investment monitoring and evaluation procedures, staff training, posting and transfer policy for the public sector employees, and procedures for procurement.—SADA
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