The current phase of the Local Government system raised the doubts about the trustworthiness of the upcoming LG governments as the corrupt records of the previous LG governments is telling the clear tale of the past.
The previous LG governments carried serious allegations including doubtful, non-transparent expenditures, irregular or invalid expenditures, excess or over-payments, non-deductions of government dues, irregular payments or allocations for different projects, miscellaneous irregularities (production of record, reconciliation of accounts, irregular allocations, etc), and loss in own source revenue or misuse of authority.
The details of the resent special audit ordered by the present provincial government into the accounts of the local councils of the Punjab of the last three years showed that the misappropriation of these people representatives have caused the public exchequer a loss of enormous money worth Rs161 billion.
Of the total damage to the public exchequer, a sum of Rs 93.9 billion was lost by the city and district governments while an amount of Rs 67.19 billion was wasted or embezzled by the TMAs, according to the documents.
A loss of Rs 10.3 billion was detected in the Lahore City District Government, Rs 414.7 million in Gujranwala, Rs 3.5 billion in Faisalabad, Rs 1.5 billion in Multan, Rs 3.1 billion in Rawalpindi, Rs 1.4 billion in Bhakkar, Rs 592 million in Narowal, Rs 541 million in Sialkot, Rs 1.2 billion in Layyah, Rs 11.7 million in Chakwal, Rs 413 million in Dera Ghazi Khan, Rs 1.8 billion in Attock and Rs 288 million in Gujrat.
Similarly, according to the audit report, the Khanewal City District Government allegedly frittered away Rs 8.7 billion, Rajanpur Rs 1.36 billion, Lodhran Rs 720 million, Pakpattan Rs 527.9 million, Vehari Rs 1.85 billion and Sahiwal Rs 743 million.
The 23 TMAs of the Lahore division suffered financial damage of Rs 9 billion, 15 TMAs of the Faisalabad division Rs 5.64 billion, 22 TMAs of the Gujranwala division Rs 8.55 billion, 22 TMAs of the Rawalpindi division Rs 25.39 billion, 19 TMAs of the Multan division Rs 6.29 billion, 15 TMAs of the Sargodha division Rs 4.17 billion, 13 TMAs of the Dera Ghazi Khan division Rs 2.39 billion and 15 TMAs of the Bahawalpur suffered a financial loss of Rs 5.6 billion.
(Web Desk)