Depts create hurdles to hide wrongdoings: Who is afraid of audit in Jammu and Kashmir?

Srinagar, Feb 10: Seeming exasperated over dilly-dallying tactics by some departments, Accountant General (AG) has written to Finance Department expressing serious concern over the repeated attempts by some officials to scuttle the audit system.

“An audit party was deputed for collecting the copies of contracts and agreements from the heads of the departments of all the Public Works Departments and civil departments. The departments were not allowing audit team to access relevant documents. The objective of scrutiny is to see whether the contracts or agreements have not led to loss or wastage of public money and also to ensure that the rules and regulations provide reasonable security against malpractices,” reads a letter by AG.

The office of the Accountant General is responsible for the audit of all government departments and autonomous bodies.

An official of General Administration Department said departments were not cooperating with AG’s office to hide their failures.

“Several departments fear that their wrongdoings and misappropriation will get exposed if there is a fair audit system,” the official said.

The AG’s office is responsible for the preparation of monthly and annual accounts of the state governments and Union Territories. These reports are presented before the government for further action under rules.

Sensing trouble, Finance Department has now directed departments to provide all relevant documents to the AG for the audit. Departmental heads have also been warned of action against non-cooperation with audit teams.

Similarly, sources said, government has also directed departmental heads to submit monthly and annual progress report card of their departments.

“Several departments have failed to submit results framework document (RFD) for years,” the official said.

The RFD was launched to judge the performance of departments and to bring transparency in their functioning.

The administrative secretaries have to evaluate the performance of their departments under RFD on the basis of timeline completion of targets, outcomes of the schemes, priorities fixed, quality of work done, and status of benefits of projects.