MULTAN, April 8: The working of the audit cell of the Punjab health department has been adversely affected as some 17,000 audit objections of various kinds are to be dealt with.

Of the annual budgetary allocations of the health department, 67 per cent has been spent on payment of salaries, 3 per cent on the purchase of goods, 3 per cent on repair and 27 per cent on commodity and service.

It is interesting to note that except salaries, all other heads have audit objections.

Sources said some 12,000 ordinary audit objections were lying pending with the cell, while 2,500 advance paras, 1,400 proposed draft paras, and 600 draft paras had also been put in the cold storage.

The ordinary observations are such audit objections which can be settled down at the district level. While, the objections pertaining to the advance paras can be decided through a departmental accounts committee (DAC) comprising deputy secretaries of provincial finance and health departments and an audit deputy director. The matters which can not be decided by the DAC are referred to special DAC; which comprises additional secretaries of finance and health department and a deputy director of the auditor general department, as proposed draft paras.

When the audit objections can not be resolved even by the SDAC, the matter has to be referred to the public accounts committee (PAC). Before sending matters relating to audit objections to the PAC, the department keeps them as memorandum to be settled down prior to the scrutiny of public accounts committee. Some 200 such audit objections are also to be decided by the health department.

Apart from the alleged lethargic response to the audit objections on the part of health department, as much as 285 cases of recovery and 130 of disciplinary action have yet to be processed by the health department authorities.

Sources claimed that the health department’s audit director Tanvir Baig had been suspended for allegedly having differences with the top officials of the department after his refusal to do ‘selective’ justice. Sources said the situation had further aggravated the already prevailing lukewarm attitude in the audit cell of the department.