Spread over a span of 30 years, financial irregularities worth over Rs 1.77 trillion have been exposed in the Sindh Finance Department.
According to the yearly audit reports available with Pakistan Today, loans of Rs 22 billion granted to several government institutions and individuals by the Finance Department have not been recovered even after the passage of 30 years.
The audit at the department responsible for the smooth financial operations of the province was done by the Auditor General of Pakistan in the financial year 2009-10.
Due to the irresponsibility shown by department officials, loans amounting to Rs 1.478 billion obtained by the district governments were be recovered.
Different financial institutions also obtained loans worth Rs 17.281 billion while the private sector was handed out loans up to the tune of Rs 178.438 million. The Sindh government employees were also granted loans worth 48.74 million while an amount of Rs 2.891 billion was sanctioned under the head of “Dera”.
The huge amounts of money handed out from the national exchequer have still not been recovered.
An amount of Rs 17.8 bllion was regularly withdrawn from the account under the head of employees’ pension from 2002 to 2009 to establish a Pension Fund under an ordinance. However, the fund has still not been established.
The department also issued a sum of Rs 1.980 billion for the insurance of its employees.
Another Rs 1.98 billion were shown to the audit authorities as negative debit account.
The audit report revealed an investment of Rs 225.702 million made by the department but no record of any such investment was provided by the department.
A further Rs 8 billion was to be recovered as the interest on the loans given.
A luxury land cruiser worth Rs 4.6 million was bought by the finance department while the employees were awarded millions of rupees as honorarium illegally.
The Auditor General of Pakistan has recommended in the report that all financial irregularities must be recovered and the officials responsible for such punished accordingly.
