Bangladesh News

The move to recover Tk 12,581 crore from individuals and organisations that were held responsible for the loss of public money faces uncertainty as there is no mechanism to monitor the progress in absence of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

During the tenure of immediate past parliament, the PAC detected the huge financial anomalies while discussing the annual reports of the office of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), which were prepared on income and expenditure of 15 ministries and divisions.

The PAC made several ministries recover only Tk 63.77 crore from individuals and organisations during its three and a half years’ tenure and its efforts to recover the misused government money were put to rest as its tenure expired with the dissolution of eighth parliament on October 27 last year.

The non-functioning of the PAC offered scope for the ministries and divisions assigned to recover the money to remain indifferent to the responsibilities, sources concerned said.

Resumption of functions of the PAC, which can monitor the progress of recovering the huge amount of public money, is unlikely before early in 2009 as the next general election to constitute parliament is scheduled for December 2008.

“The possibility of recovering the huge amount of money is slim as there is nobody to monitor the progress. It was not possible to recover a large amount of money in the past due mainly to the lack of proper monitoring,” former CAG M Hafizuddin Khan told The Daily Star yesterday.

Chairman of the immediate past PAC advocate Harun Al Rashid said, “It’s difficult to recover money even through continued efforts. Now the committee does not exist. Who will monitor the progress of money recovery?”

“We identified the anomalies and directed recovery of the money through hard work. If the public money is not recovered due to lack of monitoring, it will be unfortunate for us,” he added.

Contacted by The Daily Star, a secretary, who during the last several months held the top bureaucratic post under several ministries, however said it is a continuous process and the recovery work is well on course.

Senior officials of different ministries, who are designated to deal with the audit objections, also claimed that they are trying to recover the money and dispose of audit objections, which are pending.

“It is easy to settle any objection, but difficult to recover money. Some officials who were held responsible for the government’s financial loss have already retired. So, it is difficult to make them refund the money,” said a senior official on condition of anonymity.

Officials in the office of the CAG are sceptical about the success of the next PAC in recovering the huge amount of public money as the new PAC will have to face tremendous backlog of tasks.

The officials said they have done their duty by assisting the PAC in detecting the financial anomalies through the audit reports.

“It proved difficult to make the ministries recover the embezzled money when the Public Accounts Committee was functioning. Without the committee, it would be more difficult to recover the money,” Hafizuddin, also a former adviser to a caretaker government, said referring to his experience when he held the post of CAG.

Bureaucrats do not want to follow the committee’s directives, as most of the allegations raised in the audit reports are against them, he said.

Since its formation on May 12, 2003, the PAC discussed a total of 149 audit objections raised by the office of the CAG from FY 1995-06 to 2001-02 in which Tk 13,154 crore was involved.

Audit reports on the ministries of communications, education, shipping, health and family welfare, housing and public works, agriculture, foreign, industries, water resources, post and telecommunications, civil aviation and tourism, Finance Division, Power Division, and Internal Resources Division were discussed.

The committee had the ministries recover only Tk 63.77 crore, adjusted Tk157.72 crore and decided to discuss some reports involving Tk 278.89 crore at a convenient time later, said the immediate past PAC in its report, which was placed before the House.

In the report, the PAC identified government officials and different public and private organisations responsible for the misuse of public money through irregularities and corruption.

In view of the importance of functions of the PAC, the CAG on last Tuesday asked the caretaker government to immediately constitute a PAC on ad hoc basis to scrutinise the accounts of the government and reports of the CAG in the absence of a parliament.

Both Hafizuddin and Harun Al Rashid supported the proposal for continuation of the functions of PAC to enable it to monitor whether its directives to recover public money from the corrupt people are followed.

It will also help to reduce backlog of tasks to help ensure accountability and transparency of the government expenditure, they added.

Harun proposed introduction of a new system allowing the PAC to discharge its duties until the next PAC is constituted following formation of new parliament. The system should be like the existing system for the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker of parliament, he said.