Islamabad -  The Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) has unearthed irregularities worth hundreds of millions of rupees including the purchase of 60,500 faulty meters valuing Rs248.05 million.

In the audit report 2015-16 presented to the parliament, the auditor general has observed that in Iesco 60,500 meters valuing Rs248.05 million was procured from M/s SB Electronic Lahore (ICB-12) against contract dated February 17, 2009 under World Bank loan, which were found defective within warranty period. The audit noted that neither the matter was taken up with the manufacturers for replacement of defective energy meters nor any inquiry constituted to fix the responsibility.

Non-implementation of the authority’s instructions resulted in loss of Rs248.05 million due to purchase of defective energy meters up to the financial year 2015-16. The matter was taken up with the management in September 2016 and reported to the ministry in December 2016. The management replied that all the energy meters were installed and working satisfactory. However, the auditor said that the reply was not acceptable as no documentary evidence was provided to substantiate the reply.

It was also noted by the audit that as per letter of the GM Technical Services Wing NTDCL the work was funded by ADB and previously ADB has not approved the variation of scope from the tender. After approval of the profile variation will further increase therefore work should be executed after approval of the variation order from funding agency.

In PMU Iesco, a variation order No 2 amounting to Rs23.87 million equal to 15.36 percent of the original contract price of the work of 132 KV SDT Transmission Line Hattian to Bagh, was irregularly approved by the CEO under ADB loan Tranche-II. The said variation order was not approved from the ADB which was irregular and unjustified.

Non adherence to above instructions resulted in irregular payment of Rs23.87 million on account of variation order up to the financial year 2015-16. The matter was taken up with the management in August 2016 and reported to the ministry in December 2016.The management replied that the approval of the variation order No 2 was not required from the ADB. The reply was not tenable as the variation order No 2 was required to be approved from ADB.

On January 24, 2017, the DAC has directed the management to furnish revised reply along with supporting documents to audit but no progress was reported till the finalisation of the audit report. Similarly, according to the audit report unjustified payment of Rs23.14 million on account of repair of transformers was made to private reclamation workshop. According to the office order the damaged transformers would be checked at reclamation workshop Wah by a technical committee comprising of three members. Repair and maintenance should be carried out according to the report provided by the technical committee.

In Iesco, a rate contract for repair of damaged transformers on lumpsum basis was made with M/s Hammad Transformer Engineering Company. An amount of Rs23.14 million was paid on account of repair of damaged transformers without checking the transformer by technical committee as per SOP. Moreover, in the presence of Wapda reclamation workshops repair of transformer from private workshop is un-justified. The management has replied that the lumpsum basis was used because transformers were repaired capacity wise. Moreover Hammad T/F Engineering Company was an approved workshop of Iesco and the capacity of Pakistan Wapda Foundation Workshop was insufficient to meet the demand of Iesco.

The reply was not tenable as the payment was made to workshop without assessing the actual damages. The audit further said that loss of Rs6.67 million caused due to irregular upgradation. In Iesco 73 data entry operators and line staff were promoted to BPS-17 irregularly which has caused Rs6.67 million losses. In another case of irregularities, Iesco has promoted manager in BPS 18 in 2009 and BPS 19 in 2012 which was irregular and has caused the loss of Rs5.04 million to the exchequer.

Similarly, an unauthorised expenditure of Rs21.2 million on civil works was incurred, unjustified expenditure of Rs16.36 million on village electrification, unjustified expenditure of Rs7.59 million incurred on diversion of load and Rs6.61 million irregularly was charged on account of shifting of material, said the audit report.

Fawad Yousafzai