LAHORE, Aug 27: Financial and administrative mismanagement at two filling stations of the City District Government Lahore (CDGL) at Outfall and Ferozpur roads has surfaced as a result of a three-month probe.

However, neither anyone has been held responsible nor the exact loss caused to the exchequer has been ascertained, a CDGL official told this reporter.

The Metropolitan Filling Station was established on Outfall Road on June 17, 1998, while the City Government Filling Station was developed near Children’s Hospital on Ferozpur Road on Dec 5, 2004.

On public complaints, District Nazim Mian Amer Mahmood had in June this year directed the executive district officer (finance) to look into the legal status, working, financial and accounting matters.

The EDO (finance) took three months to unearth that no prescribed procedure had been adopted to run the two facilities. The daily income generated from there was being deposited with a commercial account instead of CDGL’s head. Cashbooks and registers were neither being properly maintained nor reconciled with bank statements either on a daily or monthly basis.

The inquiry found that officers of different tiers misused their authority by spending in excess of their financial powers.

Since there was no proper accounting system, several unauthorised and irrelevant people continued getting the tanks of their vehicles filled. Two cars bearing registration (LXO 6881) and (LZO 717) that were in use of EDO (municipal service), continued to get fuel from the filling station seven months after the transfer of the officer on petrol books under the signatures of unauthorised people, causing a loss of approximately Rs300,000.

“Various government departments are to pay over Rs10 million to the two filling stations that themselves owe millions of rupees to different offices, petroleum companies and others,” the CDGL official claimed.

The district nazim, the official said, took a strict note of the situation and ordered action against all found involved in irregularities.

Deciding to upgrade the two facilities and to run them under a project director to improve their financial affairs through adoption of a transparent procedure, Mian Amer directed holding of regular audit of the income and expenditure generated from there.