Bureaucrats set to fail vehicle monetisation scheme

With only a week remaining in the implementation of the proposed vehicle monetisation scheme for grade 20 and above officers of the federal government, some top officials known for their habitual misuse of official vehicles are in efforts to sabotage the scheme, Pakistan Today reliably learnt on Saturday.
Under the new measures, petrol and maintenance of official vehicles had to be frozen and officers in grade 20 and above had to be offered monetary compensation in place of official chauffeur-driven cars. At present 1,391 officers are allowed official cars. The monetisation scheme would offer them Rs 40,000 to 70,000 per month apart from the salary. The government had planned to launch the scheme from August 1, 2011.
The cabinet had already approved the policy and the Cabinet Division is responsible for its implementation. However, the ministries would be allowed to keep a pool of cars for official work. The steps were proposed as audit reports for the last several years reported the misuse of official vehicles that cost billions to the national exchequer. Under the law, a federal minister and a minister for state are only entitled to use one car of 1,800CC, while a federal secretary is entitled to use a 1,300CC car.
Foregoing: Last month, Federal Audit Director General Syed Gulzar Hussain told monitoring and implementation committee of the Public Accounts Committee that of 18,000 government vehicles under the federal government, 14,000 were being used against the law, causing an annual loss of Rs 5 billion to the national exchequer.
“Bureaucrats do not want to get monetary compensation and want to retain their facility of numerous luxury vehicles”, the source said. The audit report 2010-11 revealed that the minister, minister of state, parliamentary secretary, secretary and some other big guns of the Communication Ministry spent a hefty amount of Rs 10.71 million on petrol and maintenance of cars they used without entitlement.
The report said the establishment general manager at NHA Headquarters, Islamabad procured 22 vehicles for operational needs, but the vehicles remained with officers of the Ministry of Communication instead of being utilised for the project. “As these vehicles were utilised by the non-entitled people, therefore, an amount of Rs 10.71 million was recoverable from them,” it adds.
According to the data given by the auditors, five NHA vehicles remained in use by the minister for communications, two by minister of state for communications, four with the communications secretary, one with the parliamentary secretary, one with the NA standing committee chairman, one with the senior joint secretary, one with the director (roads), two with the PS to the minister, one with the PS to the minister of state, one with the Ex-DG (Admin), two with the deputy chairman planning commission and one with the communication additional secretary.
The audit report said Staff Car Rule-11 provided that a staff car belonging to an attached department or a subordinate office of a division shall not be used by the administrative ministry/division and every department or office shall be responsible for any misuse or irregularity committed on this behalf. The audit authorities further pointed out that the Ministry of Finance in the Financial 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 enjoy the privilege.
In a similar case, the audit report 2010-11 on accounts of the federal government (civil) for the fiscal year 2009-10 revealed that that the office of the Intelligence Bureau Lahore joint director general, under the administrative control of the Cabinet Division, did not produce the record of 67 government vehicles to the office of the Federal Audit director general. The record involved expenditure of Rs 18.4 million on POL and maintenance of vehicles. “The record was also not produced in audit year 2008-09,” the report said.