Ishtiyaq Ahmad
SRINAGAR, March 12 (KNS): Government departments in Jammu and Kashmir have come under the scanner for allegedly creating hurdles in audit of the Accountant General.
The office of the Accountant General is responsible for the audit of all government departments and autonomous bodies.
However, the Accountant General has written to J&K’s Finance Department expressing concern that government departments were creating hurdles in the audit.
The AG has pointed out how the departments were not providing relevant details for the audit.
“An audit party was deputed for collecting the copies of contracts and agreements from the heads of the departments of all the Public Works Departments and civil departments,” the letter reads. It says that departments were not allowing audit team to access relevant documents.
“The objective of scrutiny is to see whether the contracts or agreements have not led to loss or wastage of public money and also to ensure that the rules and regulations provide reasonable security against malpractices,” the letter reads.
An official of General Administration Department told Kashmir News Service (KNS) that departments were not cooperating with AG’s office to hide their failures.
“Several departments do not want expose of misappropriation of funds and other wrong doings,” the official said.
The AG’s office is responsible for preparation of the monthly and annual accounts of state governments and Union Territories.
Then these reports are presented before the government for the action.
Taking note, J&K’s Finance Department has directed departments to provide all relevant documents to the AG for the audit.
“Departments may be directed to ensure that the copies of all contracts and procurement orders are invariably endorsed to the office of the AG,” the letter reads.
Departmental heads have also been warned of action against non-cooperation with audit teams.
Similarly, sources said government has also directed departmental heads to submit monthly and annual progress report card of their departments.
“Several departments have also failed to submit results framework document (RFD) for years,” the official said.
The RFD was launched to judge the performance of departments and to bring transparency in their functioning.
The administrative secretaries have to evaluate performance of their departments under RFD on the basis of timeline completion of targets, outcomes of the schemes, priorities fixed, quality of work done, and status of benefits of projects. (KNS).