PESHAWAR, Nov 28: The Audit General office has detected Rs433.35 million embezzlement by the provincial education department officials in the Social Action Programme (SAP) funds.
According to the NWFP audit report of 2000-2001 released recently, it said that Rs2,285,979 funds were misappropriated and fraudulently taken away by the officials of education department. While, Rs831,277 were embezzled on account of overpayment of pay and allowances to the employees.
Negligence of the officials also caused a huge loss of Rs24,857,063, whereas the Audit General office had detected that violation of rules had caused Rs4,522,109 loss to the SAP funds.
The audit report stated that the education department in violations of property rules also caused loss of Rs4,854,000. While, accounting errors, non-production of record and failure in the recoveries caused the loss of Rs5,985,432 to the SAP funds.
In the office of SDEO (female), Peshawar, overpayment of pay and allowances of Rs410,782 were made.
The reports said that the recoveries of some of the overpayments were overdue, but the local office failed to initiate any action.
In the same office, the salary of a caller was continuously drawn till June 30, 2001, whereas she had attained the age of superannuation on July 1, 1998. The unauthorised retention of the employee, beyond the age of superannuation, involved irregular expenditure of Rs122,004.
The health and age certificate of the employee, produced at the time of her appointment on July 1, 1978, revealed that her age at the time of appointment, according to her own statement, was 33 years. Whereas, according to the medical officer’s assessment she was 40/41 years.
In the office of DEO (F) Secondary, Peshawar, certain amounts aggregating Rs4,157,202 on account of cost of furniture and equipment, were drawn on June 30, 2001.
The audit report said that the expenditure was sanctioned by the director of the education department. Although he had no powers to sanction such expenditure beyond Rs100,000 at a time. The articles purchased were also not taken on stock. Thus, the entire expenditure was irregular.
The record of GECT (M) Kohat revealed that five residential bungalows and three servant quarters were constructed some two decades ago, involving an expenditure of approximately Rs4 million.
It was observed that ever since their construction, none of the accommodations remained occupied by the college employees, even for a single day, till it was declared in August 2000 by the C & W Department as unfit for human habitation.
Thus, it was not only that the government was deprived of a legitimate recurring income, in the form of house rent recovery, but the huge investment in their construction had also gone waste.