September 22, 2007	Saturday	Ramazan 09, 1428

KARACHI, Sept 21: Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) auditors have “reprimanded” the Pakistan Boxing Federation (PBF) for some “procedural lapses” in accounts but are hell-bent on closing the chapter saying there is not any concrete evidence against officials.

Following a series of allegations of corruption and financial mismanagement against PBF and its chairman Anwar Chowdhry from various quarters, the PSB had sent a two-member team to Karachi to investigate the charges.

PSB accounts officer, Shamsur Rehman, and audit officer, Ismail Sheikh, visited Karachi from Sept 14 to 19.

However, their “investigations” started with a sumptuous Iftar dinner at Chowdhry’s residence on Sept 14 and ended on a dead end as they said they didn’t find any proof of corruption.

“We didn’t find any clue which could lead us to conclusion. There was nothing wrong with the accounts,” Shams told Dawn before departing for Islamabad.

When quizzed, the PSB official disclosed there were indeed some “procedural mistakes” for which the PBF had been “requested” not to repeat them in future.

“There were some procedural problems like proper approval of the budget and other things for which we have asked the PBF not to repeat the same mistakes in next financial year’s accounts audit,” said Shams after being pressed to disclose the procedural lapses.

The official categorically denied that the PBF had been operating a secret bank account without having any record of its transaction in account books.

“There is no secret bank account being maintained by PBF. And if there is any, we have no proof of it. Therefore, we can’t take any action against any the federation’s officials. But everybody knows that in Pakistan organisations and companies do maintain two accounts, one official and the other one for secret financial operations,” was the strange reply from PSB official.

However, it seems that Chowdhry & Co have once again tried to hush up the mess as Shams said he was provided only a page or two of the internal audit done by Namdar & Co. But the matter of the fact is that internal auditors had submitted a 12-page one-year audit report till June 2006, pointing out several financial irregularities.

“If auditors have pointed out such irregularities and mentioned about secret bank account, then we are not aware of such report. All we have been provided are figures and accounts showing expenditures and income. Therefore in all probability, there is nothing wrong with accounts,” said Shams while defending the PBF.

The PBF auditors had pulled up the federation earlier this year for maintaining a secret account number 511-2100-022956 at The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd.

“Bank statements for ensuing audit period from July 2005 to June 2006 have not been provided to the auditors for the unrecorded bank account. Not reflecting the transactions in the books of federation will be misleading, will tantamount to misappropriation and will not give a true and fair view of the state of the PBF affairs,” auditors wrote in the March 3, 2007 report.

Interestingly, while Shams ruled out existence of secret bank account, PBF secretary Shakeel Durrani had himself admitted to an unrecorded bank account in the name of Pakistan Amateur Boxing Federation (PABF) even after the change of nomenclature and had been receiving grants in the said account for the past several years.

Apart from secret bank account, auditors had pointed several financial mismanagements such as violation of International Accounting Standard by considering fixed assets as expenses without considering rate of depreciation, not filing income tax returns and improper maintenance of account books.

Ironically, while International Boxing Association (AIBA) debarred Chowdhry from the body in June after corruption charges, the PSB officials have almost closed the investigation, completing a half-hearted process.