ISLAMABAD, Jan 15: The Auditor General has detected financial irregularities of Rs3 billion in receipts of Central Board of Revenue during 1999-2000. Out of the said amount Rs1,498 million were reported to have been recovered and another Rs1,889 million committed by the department to be recovered in due course of time.

This was stated in the audit report submitted by the Auditor General’s office for review by the ad hoc Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

The PAC, which started its four-day meeting with its chairman H.U. Baig in the chair on Tuesday, had detailed discussion on audit paras and special report.

The committee was told that the CBR has not been able to achieve the desired results of the documentation through the country-wide survey as the assessees had succeeded in concealing their real income by under-reporting in the survey forms.

The CBR chairman, Riaz Ahmed, in response to a query by the PAC, however, expressed the hope that since 1.3 million out of 1.8 million survey forms had been computerized, the assessment to be submitted by the taxpayers and the one recorded by the CBR would help detect the concealed earnings in due course of time.

He admitted that although the corruption had been brought down from one of the highest, the menace still partially existed in the department.

The PAC chairman, H.U. Beg, stressed the need for a total rehashing of the budgeting system to minimize the chance of over-budgeting, reappropriation and lapse of the funds.

He said the country was facing huge budget deficit of over Rs250 billion, which was met by foreign loans and local borrowings, increasing the debt burden on the country. Hence, he asked the finance ministry to take immediate steps for training the staff in budget making and make sure that only such officials were appointed who have a background knowledge of the budget making.

The committee also noted that the CBR’s internal audit staff was not trained enough and similar was the case with the auditor general office staff. It recommended to the government to take early measures to imparting necessary training on auditing of accounts.

The PAC noted with concern that the CBR got an amount of Rs52 million reappropriated on May 15, while an amount of Rs18 million was surrendered as saving on the same date. This showed lack of coordination and called for changes in the rules and regulations as well.

The committee also expressed its concern over the reply of the CBR that it had no record of sales tax assessments in certain cases but it had provided the same record to the Auditor General’s team during audit.

The committee noted a number of examples of bad budgeting by the CBR in which reappropriated amounts were neither spent completely nor adjusted in other heads during the budgeting year.

The PAC chairman called for qualitative reforms in the budgeting system to save every penny of the national exchequer, and the budget control system should be streamlined. He agreed with a suggestion from the auditor general Manzoor Hussain that in future any ministry or division should take a certificate from the AG before going for reappropriation.

The finance ministry officials told the committee that the audit reports under review pertain to the year 2000 after which a new system of monthly reconciliation of figures had been adopted.

They said the ministry stopped releasing more funds where the regular reconciliation was not done to stop unchecked expenditures and also stop unnecessary reappropriation of funds.