In a shocking revelation which may open a Pandora ’s Box on multiple financial irregularities in the Mira Bhayandar Municipal Corporation (MBMC), the internal audit wing of the civic body has identified around 1,300 audit objections involving public money amounting crores of rupees that have remained pending for the past more than a decade.
And if that was not enough 89 new objections have been added to the existing list, this year. Non-submission of proper records on utilization of funds, violation of rules in spending, excessive pay and pending recoveries in terms of sand royalty from contractors in municipal departments including- water, town planning, public works and property tax- for a long time are some of the irregularities pointed out by the municipal auditor.
The internal audit department conducts an audit every year to assess the income and expenditure of various departments and seeks clarifications on doubtful transactions. Though it is mandatory to provide the necessary information in a specific time frame, the majority of these cases stand unattended and continue to appear on the list of audit objections.
Despite standing instructions to head of departments by the erstwhile civic chief’s to resolve the objections or face disciplinary action, the compliance has remained negligible, leading to massive financial irregularities and revenue losses to the cash crunched civic body.
Some officials claimed that a major part of objections were resolved but not updated in records, however lack of any disciplinary action is said to be the main reason for the laxity by the erring officials who have been turning a blind eye towards the audit objections all these years. All eyes are now on municipal commissioner- Dr. Vijay Rathod on his step to weed out the anomalies.
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