If you cant convince someone, confuse them. Thats precisely how the Secretary Informations replies to the National Assemblys Public Accounts Committee regarding expenditures from the Ministry of Informations secret funds can be summed up. But he took a drubbing from the Committee members for not furnishing details of how and for what purposes the Ministry had doled out Rs 570 million in 2007-08.
That the secret fund is grossly misused by the Ministry of Information is a well-know fact. Thats exactly what the Public Accounts Committee was trying to investigate. It was beyond the comprehension of the PAC members as to why the Ministry of Information was allowed to set up such a fund. The Secretary Information received a sharp rebuff from the Auditor General when he refused to share details of spending on the plea that it was not auditable. The AG had a point in that every fund could be audited unless theres a certification from the Presidency about its being secret. And what actually worried him was that other departments had also started maintaining secret funds to conceal their expenditures from audit. There were few important questions left unasked. The PAC could have sought an explanation about the amount of money doled out to dummy newspapers in terms of ads during those two years when Rs 570 million were spent from the secret fund. The fact remains that the Ministry of Information acts as a coercive arm of the state and denies the not-so-pliant section of media its due share in the official advertising.
The argument that the Ministry of Information is maintaining the secret fund for the last four decades and no previous government had ever revealed the expenditures made under this head is flawed. It is time to put an end to the malpractices of the past and the record of money spent from the government funds be made public. The government should not hesitate from allowing the Auditor General to conduct special audit of every secret fund.
