In the midst of a great financial crunch, when a number of poverty- and unemployment-stricken Pakistanis are committing suicide and the government has set its eyes on loans from the International Monetary Fund and grants from the US, bureaucrats of one – out of hundreds of such public organisations or departments – wasted Rs 6 million in a year on illegal use of official vehicles.
Audit authorities have found that the Finance Ministry, in the Fiscal Year 2009-10, spent approximately Rs 6.35 million on petrol and maintenance of vehicles which were being used by officers who were not entitled to the privilege. The Audit Report 2010-11, which has not been made public yet, reveals that the Ministry of Finance maintained 34 excess vehicles in FY 2009-10. “Rule 2(x) of Rules for the Use of Staff Cars, 1980 provides that ‘Entitled Officers’ means officers of grade 22, 21 and 20 of the federal government borne on the sanctioned establishment of a Division or an Organisation under its administrative control.
Rule 11 and 11(1) stipulates that only one staff car shall be used both for official as well as private use by an entitled officer,” says the report, a copy of which was available with Pakistan Today. “During the review of record of Ministry of Finance, Audit noted that that the ministry had been maintaining 72 vehicles against 38 entitled officers. Thus the ministry had maintained 34 excess vehicles. Out of the 72 vehicles, movement register of 44 vehicles were not provided to Audit in violation of Para 17 of GFR VOL-I and section 14 of the Auditor General’s Ordinance 2001,” said the report.
“Audit further noted that there was an expenditure of Rs 6,353,825 incurred on repair and POL in respect of these vehicles. Audit is of the view that Ministry of Finance purchased and maintained vehicles in excess of its allocable limit. This additional expenditure put an extra burden on the national exchequer. Further, the use of these vehicles for official purposes could not be verified in the absence of record,” the report said. “In response to the observation, the management replied that ‘the movement registers are with General Branch’. The reply is evasive and only purports to buy time,” it added.
An audit official who asked not to be named said that the illegal use of official vehicles was rampant in all public sector institutions, costing billions of rupees to the national exchequer every year. “The office of the Directorate General Federal Audit is conducting a special audit on the illegal use of official vehicles in all government ministries, institutions, departments, autonomous, semi-autonomous bodies etc on the directions of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and the report will soon be presented before the PAC,” said the official, adding that audit authorities had even detected illegal use of official vehicles in the Prime Minister’s Secretariat.
