Kathmandu, August 30 :

Auditor General Gehendra Nath Adhikari today disclosed that irregularities by government offices, committees and enterprises including district development committees have reached Rs 53.88 billion by 2005.

Releasing the annual reports prepared by the office of the Auditor General for four consecutive fiscal years upto 2005, Adhikari said that irregularities have come in huge amounts due to ‘weak and unsystematic’ accounting system.

Irregularities of over of Rs 53 billion have really troubled us as some money has appeared under irregular headlines while doing auditing and some money not being deducted as tax at source, coupled with unnecessary expenses without any heading.

Of the total irregularities, five ministries namely ministry of finance (MoF) has Rs 7.16 billion irregularities, ministry of housing, construction and physical planning Rs 3.52 billion, water resources ministry Rs 2.69 billion and local development ministry Rs 2.37 billion and education and sports ministry Rs 2.54 billion, says AG’s report.

Of the total irregularities, MoF secures the highest 25.10 percentage. Similarly, other irregularities of committees and enterprises including district development committees come to be Rs 35.35 billion.

The irregularities compared to previous year has increased by about 17 per cent, according to AG’s report. In 2005, advances to be cleared by government and other enterprises come to Rs 8.68 billion.

The other serious matter is the ‘outstanding dues’ in revenue front that comes to Rs 28.02 billion till 2005. However, compared to last fiscal year 2004, this year’s outstanding dues under the revenue heading declined by 21.91 per cent.

In 2004, Rs 35.88 billion was in outstanding dues on the revenue front, says the report.

As per the report, outstanding domestic loans come to be over Rs 86 billion. It is mentioned that Rastriya Banijya Bank (RBB) has a negative net worth of Rs 21.44 billion.

The Auditor General’s office has completed auditing of 13,200 units of various government offices amounting to over Rs 652 billion.

Auditor General Adhikari, while giving details to journalists, stressed that there is a need to make financial administration more effective to ensure that there is more ‘misuse of funds’ or irregularities in government offices.