Tk two lakh crore lost in red tape: 20 Padma bridges could have been built with this money: Study of a former CAG says

Successive governments could have recouped up to Tk 200,000 crore had they taken measures on the thousands of audit objections brought against public servants since independence, according to a new research published Thursday.
“With this money, Bangladesh could have constructed 20 Padma bridges,” said a former comptroller and auditor general, who carried out the study with one of his former deputies in the audit department.
The scale of “corruption and irregularities” in the administration remained in the dark for years as no attempt was made to address the audit objections systematically, said former CAG Asif Ali.
Clarifying his method, Ali said the research was based on the amount of money involved in the thousands of audit objections made since 1972. According to constitutional provisions, the CAG presents audit reports to parliament. The public accounts committee discusses a portion of the audit objections referred by the CAG’s office.
The 15-member public accounts committee then makes recommendations on their recovery. But successive parliaments have rarely taken further action to return all the money to the public exchequer.
For instance the public accounts committee of the eighth parliament discussed 302 audit objections, said Shahjahan Mia, who was Ali’s co-researcher and a former comptroller general in charge of defence finance.
The amount involved Tk 13,622 crore, with recommendation for recovery of Tk 12,605 crore, of which just Tk 65 crore was eventually recouped.
“Parliament should take seriously all the audit objections and take measures for recovery,” said Shahjahan.
“The public accounts committee must be made stronger.”
Ali and Shahjahan presented their findings at a meeting at the Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic studies (BIISS).
“At least Tk 200,000 crore could have been recovered from those who were responsible for the audit objections had parliament given directives,” Asif Ali told the meeting.
“The total cost of the proposed Padma bridge is Tk 10,000 crore.”
“We could have built at least 20 Padma bridges if parliament had intervened for the recovery of the money,” he said.
The USAID-funded research group Progoti sponsored the study on the cost of parliament failing to address the audit objections prepared by the CAG’s office.
Former ambassador Farooq Sobhan moderated the meeting addressed by former national board of revenue chairman Abdul Mazid and former secretary Safarraj Hossain.

Courtesy of bdnews24.com, Dhaka