16 July, 2008 -More than Nu 483 million worth of 414 audited reports, some of them dating back to the 1980s, are still to be resolved, according to a new royal audit authority (RAA) report (see box).

Despite being given a deadline of December 2007 by the 87th National Assembly to clear all past cases, most ministries, corporations, financial institutions, dzongkhags, gewogs and others have failed to comply.

The cases were a mix of genuine procedural and technical lapses, lack of paper work, suspicious lapses, blatant corruption cases and also mismanagement of funds and projects. Some bureaucrats involved in highly suspicious cases will also not come under the anti corruption commission (ACC) purview as it was only established in 2006 up to which time these cases are dated. So around half a billion ngultrums in irregularities will be followed up as audit cases.

This is especially so with a recent court judgment ruling that they can prosecute cases only after ACC was formed. “The actual number of reports in 2006 was 1,098, of which we’ve now resolved 62 percent by holding a series of meetings in 2007 and asking them to resolve their pending reports,” said auditor general, Ugen Chewang.

Another audit official said, “The fact that 1,098 reports were left untouched by the agencies for so long also indicates some possible collusion and protection of the offenders.” But other reasons are cited: like officers getting transferred, ignoring of old reports as the past, apathy, and ignorance.

A major boost was seen when RAA saw the creation of its follow-up division in 2006 to especially pursue these reports. Each report by the way could contain several cases. “As per the Audit Act, the onus of resolving the audit cases rests with the agency being audited and we can only remind them, after which we can submit a report to the National Assembly,” said Ugen Chewang.

While much of the public eye is on the bigger audit or ACC cases, the numerous unresolved cases in the RAA report indicate a troubling picture of our bureaucracy, financial institutions, corporations and local government.

There are also many cases of payments for work not done or goods not received, double payments for the same items, excess payments and outstanding loans and taxes. Cases of forgery and manipulation of records to extract money and the usual ones of overpayments for TA/DA were common across the board.

In the ministries, the main cases were those of excess payments in terms of payments to bureaucrats. These also include cases of forgery and tampering of documents and signatures to make fraudulent claims, and misappropriation of cash.

The highest cash figures were for the works and human settlement ministry, with the maximum number of cases in the agriculture ministry.

In the dzongkhags, it was mainly focussed on payments made for constructions not done, overpayments for construction work and also irregularities in procurements, showing an unprofessional approach of many dzongkhag authorities.

Punakha and Tsirang top the offender’s list with unrealized advances because of construction activity in these places.

In the gewogs, there were cases like misappropriation of cash, payment for work not done or items not taken, manipulation, non collection of house insurance, fake receipts, irregular salary withdrawals, and misuse of revenue.

In almost all cases, there is a strong involvement of the local gup and also collusion with engineers or others, indicating the need for a better check and balance at the gewog level.

The dratshang, autonomous bodies and judiciary cases are mainly of irregular or excess payments and advances.

Among the corporations, the bulk of audit claims of around Nu 143.80 million is with Bhutan board product limited (BBPL), with issues like non-account of stocks and procurement without tender.

For financial institutions, the main issue was with RICBL with over Nu 101.56 million in audit issues; others are BNB, BoB and BDFC criticised mainly over non-performing or irregular loans.

The few bright spots are the ministry of economic affairs (MoEA), ministry of information and communications (MoIC) and some dzongkhags, gewogs, corporations, that have done a 100 percent clearance of their audit cases.