PANAJI
The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has hinted at possible misuse of massive public funds to the tune of Rs 1,971 crore by the BJP-led State government.
The CAG in its report ending March 2022, tabled on the floor of the House on Thursday said that a total of 10,534 Utilisation Certificates (UCs), for an amount of Rs 1,971.11 crore were due for submission from 26 departments as of March 31, last year.
“Such huge pendency in submission of UCs was fraught with the risk of misuse of public funds,” CAG stated.
CAG pointed out that 26 departments did not submit 973 UCs involving Rs 475.00 crore which were due to be submitted during the year 2021-22.
“There was, therefore, no assurance that the expenditure of Rs 475.00 crore had actually been incurred for the purposes for which it was authorised,” the auditor said.
In addition to this, CAG said that 9,561 UCs for an amount of Rs 1,496.11 crore were due for submission up to the year 2020-21 were also outstanding as on March 31, 2022.
CAG has also slammed the government for not being able to rectify the irregularities pointed out by them. CAG pointed out that the government failed to respond to the audit observations in the case of 323 inspection reports (IR) pending compliance involving revenue of around Rs 3,571.34 crore.
“Analysis of IRs issued up to December 2020 disclosed that 1,143 observations involving Rs 3,571.34 crore relating to 232 IRs remained outstanding at the end of June 2021. Out of these, 341 observations from 123 IRs were outstanding for more than five years,” the CAG said.
“This indicated that the Heads of offices/ departments did not initiate action to rectify the defects, omissions and irregularities pointed out by the AG in the IRs,” it concluded.
