The federal audit authorities have exposed serious financial irregularities and embezzlements involving a loss of millions of rupees to national kitty in Lok Virsa run by the recently devolved Ministry of Culture.
The audit report 2010-11 on the accounts of Ministry of Culture, a copy of which is exclusively available with Pakistan Today, reveals that Lok Virsa management illegally awarded 16 contracts worth Rs 92.05 million.
The report says that the Lok Virsa management awarded the work (collaboration in various joint ventures, events and programmes as well as rental of various facilities owned by Lok Virsa) to one firm through one umbrella agreement signed on July, 21, 2004, for a period of 5 years, followed by fifteen sub-agreements signed on different dates without approval of Board of Governors (BoG) for the policy decision on outsourcing, joint ventures and collaborations as required under clause 3 (2) (v) of Lok Virsa Resolution dated June 6, 1983.
The report further reveals that the bidding documents neither included any reference to the establishment of Virsa College of Arts, nor the bidders were evaluated against this requirement, however, the management signed a sub-agreement with the firm for establishment of a profit-oriented and commercially run Virsa College over 11000 square feet (later changed to 27200 square feet of land) inside the Lok Virsa complex.
“The umbrella agreement and five other sub-agreements involving Open Air Theatre, Museum Shops, Weekly Craft/Artisan Bazar, Roof Top Theatre and Artisan at work Festival expired on July 20, 2009. However, the firm was managing the tasks and holding public assets relating to these agreements without authorization at the time of audit,” says the report, adding that these irregularities took place owing to collusion of the management with the firm, and resulted in surrendering of public funds and assets to the advantage of a business entity.
The audit report also points out that the Lok Virsa management failed to recover Rs 34 million from three separate contractors. In the first case, the report reveals that an amount of Rs 8.30 million was outstanding against a firm with which Lok Virsa management signed eight agreements in 2004 since 2006 but no efforts were made by the management to recover the outstanding dues. In the second case, the Lok Virsa management failed to recover Rs 23.57 million from a firm on account of illegal and unauthorised agreement of Virsa College of Arts while the management of Lok Virsa could not recover Rs 3.12 million from another firm on account of illegal and unauthorised construction and operation of Virsa cafeteria/restaurant in the third case.
