March 20, 2008	Thursday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 11, 1429

ISLAMABAD, March 19: An audit report has unearthed irregularities, unauthorized use of funds and unaccounted for expenditures amounting to Rs1,289.997 million by the National Commission for Human Development (NCHD).

Findings of the Auditor General of Pakistan’s report for 2005-06 highlight major issues like unauthorised utilisation of endowment fund, unreliable accounting record, non-retrieval of costly assets from various NGOs, irregular payment of salary and allowances to officers working in the National Commission for Human Development on deputation, and lack of internal controls in the organisation.

The report says the commission irresponsibly spent about Rs1,250 million from the endowment fund; it has failed to retrieve about Rs3.22 million from various civil society organisations after expiry/cancellation of their contracts; an amount of Rs22.1 million received from telethon had not been accounted for; and unsecured advance payment of Rs14.677 million was made to a company for supply of 24 imported vehicles out of which 18 were not supplied.

Accounting record of the organisation has been declared unreliable.

Irregular appointments, inappropriate payment and allowances to officers have also been reported. A large number of bank accounts for different receipts were maintained without justification and foreign aid has not been reported to the government.

During the audit of the NCHD accounts, it has been observed that proper accounts of receipts and expenditures have not been maintained in accordance with the generally accepted accounting principles.

The auditor general has also accused that complete record was not provided to the audit team for inspection.

Similarly, the NCHD management also refused to produce the records relating to provision of contracts to NGOs/CSOs and their terms and conditions despite repeated requests from the audit department.

Furthermore, none of the CSOs could complete the tasks they had been assigned and failed to fulfil the contractual clauses.

NCHD Chairman Dr Nasim Ashraf was not available for comments. This reporter repeatedly tried to contact him for his version, but the office secretary said he (Dr Ashraf) was busy in a meeting. A message left with the secretary also went unresponded.