LAHORE, July 23: The Auditor-General of Pakistan has pointed out 501 cases of irregularities amounting to over Rs29.5 billion in Wapda during 2001-02 and referred them to the accounts consolidation department under member, finance.
In its report for fiscal year 2001-02, which was presented to the president recently, the accountant-general said that these irregularities were in addition to the 22 'draft paras' that contain irregularities amounting to more than Rs163.6 million and $4,300.
The report said that recoveries worth more than Rs57 million were made at the time of audit. The report termed the 501 paras approved for the MFDAC unprecedented and compared it with the previous highest figure that was contained at 393 in 2000-01.
In fiscal year 1999-2000, they were only 210. Dismissing the possibility of settling these paras, it said that only 4 out of 393 disparities appearing in accounts for the fiscal year 2000-01 were settled while in 1999- 2000, 17 out of 210 paras could be reconciled.
The report claimed that the electricity rates had risen by 77 per cent by comparison with tariff in 1998-99 mainly because of purchase from the independent power producers.
Commenting on the financial health of the National Transmission and Dispatch Company, which purchases electricity from IPPs and other generation companies, the report said that its loss increased from Rs4.3 billion in 2000-01 to Rs7 billion in 2001-02 whereas it earned a net profit of Rs2.7 billion in 1999-2000.
The report said that the eight distribution companies, which were incorporated in 1998, suffered an aggregate loss of Rs9.675 billion during 2001-02. Six of the eight companies financed their assets through debts.
Major reasons for these companies' losses included violation of rules in different financial matters like non-imposition of late delivery charges and payment of escalation, energization of steel furnaces from already existing feeders and charging of incorrect tariff resulted in loss of Rs28 million.
Equipment damage because of weak inventory, slack store management and procurement of substandard material resulted in the loss of Rs10.3 million.
