SHILLONG, Dec 2: The Local Fund Audit, which has been given the task of conducting a detailed auditing into the alleged misappropriation of funds in the Jaintia Hills and Garo Hills Autonomous District Councils, has got cracking with the task at hand. The mandate is to scrutinise the accounts for the past one decade and not just Rs 264 crore Central Government had sanctioned for infrastructure development.
The audit exercise which is the outcome of the BJP’s allegation of misuse of central special grants at GHADC and JHADC, is also a loaded exercise to unearth the suspected misappropriation during the previous Congress regime.
Official sources informed today that the local fund audit began the auditing just recently and now they are gathering the book of accounts from both the autonomous districts council before the scrutiny begins.
At the moment nobody is sure how much time it would take to complete the job. “Though we cannot specifically say how much time, but it will take some time to complete the exercise as local audit has to go through the details of 10 years of book of accounts,” sources said.
When asked how is the cooperation from both the councils in furnishing information, sources said that both the councils are furnishing whatever information is being sought by them.
“The JHADC recently had its session so, there were not able to produce all the books of accounts but now they are doing it,” Sources added.
The Local Fund Audit has deputed very senior officials to carry out the auditing exercise in both the councils and they started the auditing only after the Finance department last month gave approval to the Local Fund Audit to proceed with the special auditing.
It was in September when the NPP-led Meghalaya Democratic Alliance (MDA) government had asked the Director of the Local Fund Audit (DLFA) to conduct a detailed inquiry into the alleged misappropriation of funds but they needed the concurrence of the State Finance department since Finance is the administrative department of the Local Fund before initiating the special audit of the funds in both the councils.
Earlier, Governor Satya Pal Malik had received multiple representations alleging misuse of funds in the two ADCs after which he had sought a response from the Conrad Sangma government to the complaints of diversion and misappropriation.
Auditing for both councils was ordered after BJP State president Ernest Mawrie had raised the issue of embezzlement of central funds allocated for specific infrastructure development under the two councils.
