Editorial
Question of financial integrity
Officials who should set examples are in breach
IN an inter-ministerial meeting attended by representatives of the finance and foreign ministries as well as from the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General, discrepancies in travel claims made by officials have been revealed. The fares claimed were rates quoted from the IATA fare chart that differed widely from the competitive market prices at which tickets are sold by the airlines or their sales agents to customers.
According to knowledgeable circles, this is perhaps the tip of the iceberg; for the malpractice of submitting inflated bills for air fares, allowances and freight charges has been in vogue for decades in varying degrees. Such financial irregularities amounting to strains on the revenue budget and erosion of the public exchequer that a cash-strapped country like ours can ill-afford have hardly ever been called into question, far less wholeheartedly addressed. The only conclusion one can draw is that those who were to set things right were themselves beneficiaries of excesses, so had a vested interest in their continuation. Otherwise, contained in time, these would not have acquired such rabid forms with the passage of time.
The advance payments that government officials receive before overseas trips with heads of governments or ministers and for attending seminars, training programmes and educational courses abroad are required to be adjusted with actual expenditures incurred. If these are in excess, the residues ought to be refunded to the exchequer. But report suggests that the bills in many cases are inflated and the extra sum pocketed.
Traditionally, the higher and more important the status of the office is like that of the PMO, CAO and the foreign ministry, greater seemed to be the tendency towards bending financial rules in the face of nervous handling of inflated bills by the highest audit office. An official investigation has reportedly revealed a number of such discrepancies. Even junior officials allegedly submitted airfare bills higher than business or executive class rates. In one case, the audit section of foreign ministry detected that a bill submitted for one way ticket on a certain route was higher than the market rate for a round trip.
There should be a comprehensive auditing of the specific instances of financial irregularities and those responsible held to account with excess payments recovered to the state by an appropriate authority and punitive measures taken. Nothing could be a more powerful antidote to financial indiscipline within government than strengthened internal auditing mechanisms in respective ministries. To top it off, let's have an effective parliamentary oversight. Those who are to be the custodians of financial probity, cannot themselves be seen to be breaking discipline.
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