Rs 400 million irregularities found in Pak Interior Ministry's accounts

Islamabad, Oct. 21 (ANI): The Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) has found massive irregularities worth 400 million rupees in the accounts of the Pakistani Interior Ministry.

The AGP report, in particular, expressed shock over the ministry's wing issuing arms licences - about 223 million rupees could not be reconciled.

During 2007-2008, the ministry issued 44,558 new arms licences and received 222.98 million rupees as fees. Audit officials said they could not verify that the amount paid through challans had actually been credited to government account, The Dawn reports.

The ministry was asked to produce a reconciliation report before the audit committee, but it failed to provide any.

The report said, the concern was shared with the interior ministry officials in June last year and it was suggested that arms licences should only be issued after verifying that fees had been deposited with the treasury office concerned.

In the absence of proper reconciliation of receipts, risk of arms licences being issued against fake challans was very high, it noted.

This year, the interior ministry witnessed an unauthorised issuance of arms licences scam.

During physical inspection of the interior ministry, 1.046 million rupees were found missing.

The ministry's explained that money had been spent to meet departmental expenditures.

A review of the record indicated that the money was spent for irrelevant purposes.

According to the report, the Islamabad Capital Police had refused to transfer 32.5 million rupees which it had received against licence, parking and vehicle checking fees. (ANI)