HVK Archives: Uphill task for auditors in Left's vanishing act
Uphill task for auditors in Left's vanishing act - The Indian Express
Raman Kirpal
()
29 July 1997
Title: Uphill task for auditors in Left's vanishing act
Author: Raman Kirpal
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: July 29, 1997
The records cannot be certified or corroborated.
Purpose for which payments were made is not recorded.
Whether the amount was used for the scheme it was meant for cannot be
ascertained.
Details of expenditure are not available.
Records of authorities to whom the money was disbursed are not there.
And so it goes on and on. In case after case, which the Accountant General
(Audit) has listed charging the West Bengal Government with "financial
impropriety," the refrain is: We don't know where the money went.
Now the Calcutta High Court has asked the Comptroller and the Auditor
General to look into the whole mess. But auditors admit it's virtually
impossible to track down the money that has been allegedly siphoned off.
The Personal Ledger Accounts (PLAs) - there are 666 of them - into which
the money was parked have no "audit trail." No accounts were kept, no
regular checking was done, no one's approval was needed to withdraw money
from these accounts.
For instance, if the State Legislature approved withdrawal of Rs 2 crore
under Rural Development and deposited it into a PLA, the "functional
identifications of this money and its expenditure is "completely obliterated."
The state government claims that the Central funds didn't go into PLAs,
they were put into Local Fund Accounts which have been created under the
Zilla Parishad Act, 1963. Says Minister for Rural Development Suryakant
Mishra: "In our districts, the Local Fund Accounts are loosely called Zilla
Parishad PLA, but that doesn't change the character of the account. These
funds are born out of a State Act and CAG's concurrence is not required for
the expenditure made from these accounts."
That's a thin distinction, and a specious one, say auditors. One, Local
Fund Accounts exist only as one of the "sub-heads" under PLAs. Two, the
State Government never took this "position" in the Calcutta High Court,
when Congress NW Mamata Banerjee filed a writ petition on the PLA scandal.
In fact, lawyers representing the Government told the court that Central
funds were deposited in PLAs for "administrative convenience and efficiency."
Even Finance Minister Asim Dasgupta had admitted diversion of funds from
PLAs although he claimed that these diversions were of "a very minor
nature." And when the Left Front Government came under attack, he announced
an auditing of all the PLAs in three months and that a report would be
placed in the Assembly.
Auditors say that's an uphill task. They have already sent their
"objections" to expenditure incurred from PLAs in 17 districts and have
asked for a written clarification. However, the district administration is
yet to give any answers.
Significantly, the preliminary report filed by the Accountant General
(Audit) admits: "Since none of the treasuries in the State maintain
separate scheme-wise and head-wise register/records of the money being
withdrawn from Consolidated Fund, it is difficult to establish an 'audit
trail' as to which amount spent is from which fund."
According to the A-G, transferring money from the Consolidated Fund to PLAs
wasn't re-adjusted as reduction in expenditure at the end of the year but
was allowed to remain in PLAs for years together.
Says a senior bureaucrat: "Auditing can at best throw fight on serious
financial irregularities and can hint at massive bungling. But it cannot
unearth a seam or a conspiracy beyond a point. In West Bengal, where PLAs
have not been audited for the past 10 years, how can the Government achieve
this task in 90 days?"
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