SHILLONG, Jan 6: The Directorate of Local Fund Audit (DLFA) has already submitted the audited report into the alleged misappropriation of funds in the Jaintia Hills Autonomous District Council (JHADC).
“We have submitted the audited report of the JHADC to the District Council Affairs (DCA) department on December 23 last year,” official sources informed The Shillong Times on Thursday.
Divulging on some of the findings, official sources said that the JHADC had temporarily diverted the funds received under the Special Assistance Grant (SAG) scheme for payment of salaries of the staff.
“We have found that the JHADC has refunded some of the funds of the SAG. But it is yet to refund the entire amount which was diverted,” official sources.
Moreover, official sources also revealed that the JHADC are still continuing with the appointment of teachers for the primary schools despite the state government having taken over the administration of the primary schools in 1994.
“We detected that a large chunk of the funds in the JHADC were spent on the salaries of these teachers. The JHADC will need to answer how they are continuing to appoint teachers when the administration of primary schools is now with the state government,” the official sources observed.
The sources also informed that the auditing of accounts in GHADC, which started on November 10, 2020 is still going on.
“The auditing in the GHADC is taking time since it is an extensive exercise. We are trying to complete the exercise by February this year,” the sources said.
It may be mentioned that the agitations by the employees of the GHADC had also led to the delay in the auditing of the accounts.
It is also informed that the staff of the GHADC were slow in furnishing information and documents which are required for auditing during the initial stages.
The audit of accounts of both Councils is for a period of 10 years. The auditing for GHADC is headed by the Assistant Director of Tura.
The auditors have been mandated to scrutinise the accounts of the past decade and not just the Rs 264 crore which the Centre had sanctioned for infrastructure development.
The government had ordered the auditing following pressure from the BJP which alleged misuse of central special grants in both Councils.
The auditing will also cover the period of the previous Congress regime.
In September, 2020, the DLFA was tasked to conduct the exercise but it had to wait for the concurrence of the Finance department.
As per the letter which was addressed to the Director of the DLFA, the DCA department had requested to conduct an inquiry into the use of funds received under the Special Assistance Grant (SAG) scheme in the two ADCs (Jaintia Hills Autonomous District Council and Garo Hills Autonomous District Council).
Earlier, Governor Satya Pal Malik had received multiple representations with allegations of diversion and misuse of funds in the two Councils. Subsequently, he had sought a response from the government.