July 14: The series of economic crisis is deepening in the country day by day. According to the 59th annual report published by the Office of the Auditor General on Wednesday, the trend of misusing funds from the state coffers and financial irregularities have been increasing. The report also pointed out that the concerned government bodies have been found using money from the state treasury without maintaining audit reports.
Government arrears have also increased this year compared to last year, the report states.
According to the report, the arrears of the federal government, provincial government, local government and state-owned corporations have increased by Rs 115 billion this year and stands at Rs 483 billion.
Auditor General Tanka Mani Sharma Dangal says that the arrears have increased by 15.46 percent compared to last year.
The Office of the Auditor General considers the money spent form the state coffers as arrears if the money is not spent as per the existing laws, or the audit report is not prepared or there has been financial irregularities.
Some arrears occur due to procedural flaws while others are due to financial irregularities.
According to the 59th annual report, a total of 3287 offices of the federal government maintained audit reports. Transactions worth Rs 2820.37 billion were audited during the review period while the arrears were found to be worth Rs 49.47 billion.
Similarly, the auditing of 1131 offices under the provincial governments found transactions worth Rs 299.57 billion while the arrears were found to be Rs Rs 7.48 billion.
Similarly, auditing of transactions worth Rs 1051.9 billion at the local levels revealed arrears worth Rs 43.90 billion.
Likewise, the arrears of 448 committees and government bodies stood at Rs 14.19 billion. This was revealed after auditing transactions worth Rs 206 billion.
According to the Office of the Auditor General, the Ministry of Finance tops the list of government offices with the highest arrears. The arrears of the finance ministry stands at Rs 19.92 billion.
