SHILLONG, June 8: A week after the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) wrote a letter to Governor Satya Pal Malik seeking his intervention into alleged embezzlement of funds by the three autonomous district councils through non-maintenance of accounts, the Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council on Wednesday came out with a meek response, stating that it could not prepare its financial accounts for the year 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It is normal audit of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) for every fiscal year. In fact, we had communicated to the AG in Shillong on the reasons for the delay in preparing the financial accounts,” a defensive KHADC Chief Executive Member, Titosstarwell Chyne said.
On the question posed by the CAG that the audit reports are either not tabled or tabled belatedly and are not discussed by the Councils, Chyne said that the assertion that they were not tabling the report was not true.
“The fact is that there is backlog even from the CAG. The CAG report which was tabled during the last budget session was for the fiscal year 2016-2017,” the KHADC CEM said.
He said that the council is preparing the accounts and it will submit the same to the CAG at the earliest.
In a letter addressed to the Governor on June 1, the CAG said as many as ten accounts — two of KHADC, three of JHADC and five of the GHADC are still pending for submission as on December 31, 2021.
The letter to the Governor mentions that as per Para 7(3) of the Sixth Schedule, the accounts of these ADCs are to be maintained in the format prescribed which are then audited by the CAG teams.
Training its gun on the three ADCs, the CAG said the councils do not prepare accounts and maintain records of expenditure on time which consequently delays implementation of corrective measures recommended by the auditors based on the findings of the audit and mismanagement, misappropriation, wasteful expenditure etc., continue unchecked for years.
The non-maintenance of accounts is an indication of financial mismanagement and points towards embezzlement of funds in the three ADCs, it said.
The CAG also revealed that the deficiencies were communicated to Chief Secretary RV Suchiang on March 17, 2022, the chief executive members of the respective Councils on March 23, 2022 and Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma on March 30, but no action was taken by any of the authorities.
