Misappropriation of funds derails Pakistan Railways
The audit report of the Pakistan Railways (PR) for the fiscal year 2010-11 clearly indicates that the current financial crunch of the organisation resulted because of persistent pilferage, misappropriation of funds worth Rs6 billion and habitual apathy of railway high-ups to check wastage of the public money.
The report launched recently and available with The News revealed that Rs194.717 million misappropriations of funds in scrap material was detected besides pilferage of fittings and equipment from rolling stock, which was estimated at Rs151.873 million. It also faced a loss of Rs830.589 million in the sale of scrap at lower rates Rs961.299 million loss because of limited recovery of gas charges. The department suffered further loss of Rs558.12 million due to injudicious evaluation of tenders, the report reads.
The report mentioned three instances of non-recovery of dues by railways including rental and departmental charges amounting to Rs241.291 million, irregular deposit of government receipts worth Rs24.045 million in a private bank account and contracts of Rs23.674 million were awarded illegally.
Moreover, wasteful expenditure on idle staff and overstaff has been highlighted in the report, which amounts to Rs45.768 million. The report revealed that extra fuel of Rs11.98 million was consumed through unnecessary detention of locomotives. The amount of un-cashed cheques amounting to Rs326.655 million was not cleared from the accounts for the financial year 2009-2010, which resulted in overstatement of expenditure for the fiscal year 2010-11. The department did not attach potential earnings of Rs479.689 million because of non-leasing of 15,989 acres of agricultural land.
Substandard repair and overhauling of traction motors costing Rs175.420 million has also been highlighted in the report. Besides three cases of non-installation of imported machinery worth Rs123.205 million wasteful expenditure of Rs44.461 million was made on electricity charges on a closed traction section.
The staff had re-used open engine oil in locomotives and power vans affecting their life and operation. The department was deprived of potential earnings creating losses worth Rs309.258 million due to non-provision of gas worth Rs63,000 for air-conditioned coaches. On the other hand, due to financial crunch occurred due to severe irregularities and embezzlement committed by the departmental officials themselves, Pakistan Railways had sought bail out package of Rs50 billion from the federal government to revive the economic situation enabling it to operate smoothly.
However, against demanded bail-out package of Rs50 billion, the federal government allocated only Rs11.5 billion, which was rejected by the finance division because of which an amount of Rs3billion was released to the Railways, which was spent on procuring diesel as its shortage had halted the operation of dozens of trains some three months ago. The report said embezzlement, wastage of funds, failure in recovering outstanding dues and other financial irregularities amounting to billions of rupees were the reasons for the losses.