Staff shortage affects auditing

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The huge shortage of staff in the Local Fund Audit Department(LFAD) is affecting auditing in over 7,000 institutions which comes under the purview of the department.The annual auditing of accounts in local  bodies, universities, courts, Devaswom Boards, Housing Board, cultural institutions such as  Sahithya Academy, State Institute of Languages, orphanages, charitable institutions, libraries, development authorities, are done by the department in a time-bound manner and tabled on the floor of the House.Since the passing of the Local Fund Audit Act in 1994, while Oommen Chandy was the Finance Minister in the K Karunakaran Ministry, there has been a demand to increase the number of staff in the LFAD.For effective auditing of the utilisation of the state and Central funds being allotted to the 978 local bodies in the state, there should be an increase in the number of LFAD staff.In 1997, the Personnel and Administrative Reforms Department (P&ARD) had conducted a work study and submitted a report to the government emphasising the importance of restructuring the LFAD and opening zonal offices in Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi and Kozhikode.The report also proposed to sanction 263 officer posts starting from audit officer to the level of joint directors urgently. But the government sanctioned these posts in three instalments in 12 years. With the introduction of the People’s Plan campaign, the local bodies which used to spent only a few lakhs of rupees in its annual plans became Local Self Government institutions having to deal with funds worth crores of rupees. With this, the responsibility of the  LFAD got enhanced by many folds.A Nizamudeen, district secretary, Kerala Local Fund Association told Express that in 2009, the Finance Department had submitted a proposal to sanction 531 posts in view of the  increase in the volume of work. But so far no action had been taken on the proposal.“When the three new universities were brought under the Local Fund Audit, we asked for sanctioning 36 posts, but only 12 posts were sanctioned,” Nizamudeen pointed out.As per the Limitation Act, action has to be taken if any discrepancy or lapses are found within four years of fund utilisation. But in majority of Local Self Government  institutions, annual audit has been pending for many years.“The delay in auditing has become a blessing for the corrupt elements in these institutions. Citing the provision that penal actions should have been initiated within four years of utilisation of particular funds as per the Limitation Act, corrupt elements are moving scot free,” he said.In view of the sharp increase in the workload,  proposals had been given to the government in 2007 to sanction 531 new posts. But no action had been initiated so far.It has been pointed out that large scale corruption takes place in the utilisation of the NREGP funds in the absence of  effective auditing. In Sabarimala, where even cash verification is done by Local Fund Audit staff, staff shortage provides easy way out for the corrupt. The fact that around 650 staff of the 1,113-strong LFAD carries out the mammoth task of auditing over 7,000 institutions would tell the tale clear.