LAHORE, July 12: No one has so far been caught for 'corruption' in the local governments across the Punjab because of lack of proper auditing of their financial affairs and control by the provincial government.

Everybody was convinced of the 'financial freedom' of the local governments, but there was no way to control it because of absence of any method, officials said on Monday. According to them, commissions for approving contracts of development projects at different levels were the major source of corruption in the local governments.

Since this was not on the record, they said, it was impossible to establish the charges of corruption at any level. "Commissions are being received openly, but cannot be controlled because of the missing supervisory mechanism."

They said the commissions for the approval of development projects and auctions of parking lots, property and registration fee collection, and slaughter houses were the main attraction in all the three tiers of the local governments.

The most attractive tier for commissions was the tehsil union level where the devolved public and engineering, local government and urban local council departments were approving and supervising the development projects.

As for the expenditure of the huge development funds for the local governments, no case of appropriation had been reported to the government so far. "This is because of the missing audit system or any regulatory powers of the provincial government.

You can establish appropriation of funds only through proper audit, which is missing in the case of the local governments," they said. They said no complaint of any financial corruption by the district Nazims had so far been received from anywhere in the province because of lack of any system.

It was hard for the Nazims to appropriate funds because all the financial affairs were handled by the DCOs and their teams. The Nazims could only give favours in case of postings or transfers of lower staff or those of teachers and doctors or paramedical staff, besides allocation of funds for different projects. But no report of any glaring corruption had so far been received, they said.

They also said major complaints had been received against imposition of taxes by the three tiers of the local governments. In almost all cases the taxes were disallowed by the local government department.

In Faisalabad, taxes were imposed without fulfilling the formality, but the correction was made on the pressure of the local government department. "There are rumours of corruption by the Sheikhupura district government, though nothing is on record," they said.