ISLAMABAD, April 28: The Auditor General of Pakistan has found irregularities in the second All Pakistan University Games organised by the Higher Education Commission (HEC) in the year 2005.

In its report for the year 2006-07, which has been forwarded to the Public Accounts Committee of the National Assembly, the audit department said there were ‘lapses’ in budgeting implementation of the plan which led to cost escalation.

The report has pointed out an over expenditure of Rs10 million. “The actual expenditure was Rs25 million against the planned budget of Rs15 million,” adding budget was prepared on the basis of number of participants.

The report said audit was not provided with complete particulars of participants to assess that the budget was prepared and expenditure incurred on reliable basis of data. Based on the documents provided for audit, per person cost during the first university games was Rs1,808 and that for the second university games was Rs5,000 which shows that services and goods were procured at an exorbitant cost.

Regarding procurement process, the report said, “procurement was only completed in five days before commencement of the mega event.”

Vendors were not given a chance to freely participate in the bidding process and in many cases provision of Public Procurement Rules 2004 was violated. Advance payments were made without receipt of goods or performance of services and liabilities were incurred without financial sanction of the competent authority.

The report said important documents like stock register was incomplete and did not give assurance to the auditor’s that all the expenditure was incurred for the intended purpose.

Regarding miss-procurement, it said tender documents were advertised on March 23 and bids were opened only five days prior to commencement of the games. It also said transport contract was awarded at an exorbitant cost to a vendor who dealt in stationery items.

The procurement rule 13 (1) of Public Procurement Plan was violated, as minimum time of 15 days was not provided for the bid preparation.

The report said only two categories - meals/food and printing of bids - were opened on April 4, 2005, while in some categories the bids were not opened.

Heavy advance payment, Rs7.8 million, was made to vendors even before any service was provided by them, while excess of expenditure was also observed in every category of procurement.