AGP detects anomalies in expenses of official vehicles

KARACHI: Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) has identified around Rs110 million worth of irregularities in expenses recorded on use of official vehicles by various offices of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), sources said on Friday.

The sources, citing the AGP’s report on an audit year, said 20 field offices of the apex tax authority had logged expenditures on fuel, repair and maintenance of official vehicles.

The FBR’s management, however, said the offices complied with the tax laws. Log books had been prepared in some cases and the other cases had been submitted to the FBR (headquarters) for authorisation of the operational vehicles of the organisation, it added, responding to the audit report.

The AGP's scrutiny revealed that the authorisation as ‘operational vehicles’ was not obtained from the cabinet division, the sources said. “These vehicles were being used by the officers despite the fact that they were also drawing monthly conveyance / monetisation allowance,” the AGP report said. The report found that the official vehicles in some cases were even used on gazette holidays – Saturdays and Sundays –without maintaining the requisite records: log books, movement registers and requisition slips.

“Thus, use of such vehicles was unauthorised and expenditure of Rs109.7 million incurred on POL/CNG (petroleum products and compressed natural gas) and repair and maintenance was found irregular during the financial year of 2017/18,” the report said.

The AGP held several meetings in this regard and directed the FBR to revisit the cases along with comprehensive reply / documentary evidences and report progress to the audit. The AGP further directed the FBR management to provide authorisation from the FBR for use of operational vehicles.

The AGP said the FBR management has not provided progress report till the preparation of the audit report. The AGP, in its report, recommended withdrawal of vehicles from allotees and submission of cases to the cabinet division for authorisation of vehicles. It also recommended recovery of unauthorised expenditures from the concerned officials / field offices.

The auditor general found that the highest amount in irregularities found in the Model Customs Collectorate (MCC) Preventive Karachi amounted to Rs22.87 million, followed by Rs16.64 million in the Regional Tax Office (RTO) Hyderabad.

The misuse in expenses related to official vehicles was also detected in RTO Karachi –II and that amounted to Rs7.66 million. The RTO Islamabad was found to have irregularities of Rs7.59 million for unauthorised use of motor vehicles.

LTU Lahore, RTO-III Karachi, RTO Sukkur, LTU-II Karachi, Customs Intelligence, RTO Quetta, MCC Imports (Port Muhammad Bin Qasim) Karachi, and MCC Appraisement East Karachi were also on the list of field offices misusing the personal transportation facility.