ISLAMABAD, May 11: The audit department has found that post masters-general (PMGs) are not keeping details of stocks of National Savings Certificates of over Rs176 billion, and warned of the risk of embezzlement and misuse.

The Central Directorate of National Savings circulates blank stocks of saving certificates to PMGs, banks and the national saving treasuries (NSTs). While raising new acquisitions, NSTs and banks confirm their stocks’ position along with details of stocks utilised, cancelled or in-hand.

In the case of PMGs, the Auditor-General of Pakistan’s latest report says that no such `status report’ about the position of previous stocks had been submitted to the Central Directorate of National Savings (CDNS).

The monetary value of blank stocks up to June 30, 2006, with the Pakistan Post Office Department was over Rs176 billion.

“Unplanned and unaccounted issuance of National Savings Certificates raise national debt without knowledge of the government,” the audit department observed in its report which has also been forwarded to Public Accounts’ Committee (PAC) of the National Assembly.

According to the audit department, a committee had been constituted by the CDNS in April 2006 to submit a preliminary report on the issue, but the committee failed to do so.

The audit department has recommended to the PAC to take up the issue with the ministry of communications as rules of business of PMGs come from the ministry.

The department is of the view that blank stocks of the National Savings Certificates should not be issued unless stocks report of the already issued saving certificates was submitted to the Central Directorate of National Savings.

The audit also detected two cases of fraud involving Rs67million which were committed at the National Savings Centre, Renala Kurd, and the Multan-V, but these were not reported to CDNS.

The Auditor-General of Pakistan has also detected issuance of defunct premium saving certificates amounting to over Rs19million by the Pakistan Post Offices Department (PPOD).

The premium savings certificates were discontinued on June 30, 1976, but the PPOD is still trading on the premium saving certificates. The money that is now invested in these certificates belongs to the federal government.

It has also found excess commission of Rs295million deducted by the PPOD from the gross receipts on account of the National Savings Scheme (NSS).

The audit has observed that the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) also deducts the commission but the central bank submits its claims to CDNS for authorisation of payment of commission whereas PPOD itself deducts the commission without authorisation of the Finance Division, the administrator of the grant.