April 28, 2008	Monday	Rabi-us-Sani 21, 1429

ISLAMABAD, April 26: An Auditor General report has detected improper monitoring of funds amounting to Rs250 million released to district governments by the ministry of women development.

During the course of audit of a project titled Gender Reform Action Plan (GRAP), an initiative of the ministry for the period 2005-06, it was revealed that the management had transferred Rs250 million to provincial accounts as gender development grants to be equally distributed among 111 district governments in the four provinces.

The report, which was recently presented to the Public Accounts Committee of the National Assembly; however, said none of the districts provided a utilisation report. Only 44 of the 111 districts had confirmed that provincial government had transferred their shares.

The release was made for specific purpose of each district government. The amount was meant to meet women specific requirements with the support of majority of elected women members in a district council under the overall objective of gender mainstreaming in district governments.

The report said sound financial management required that donors were aware of the release made to other governments. In this case, donor was the federal government and recipient the district governments.

The report suggested that in order to ensure that funds were used for the intended purposes a sound monitoring system based on timely feedback was needed to impact gender mainstreaming.

The report also proposed that proper monitoring system be devised to ensure that funds were only used for intended objectives and that confirmation may be obtained from provincial governments that all funds were transferred into the accounts of the district governments.