The BMC has been turning a blind eye towards over 100 reports and suggestions made by its own chief auditor and corporators in the standing committee respectively, over the past 19 years.
The statistics tabled before the standing committee reveal that the civic chief has not replied to the chief auditor’s report on the budget calculations for the year 1993-94 and 1994-95. He has also not given his remarks on the computations of civic education funds for 1995-96.
Former corporator Sameer Desai said, despite being appointed by the standing committee, the chief auditor’s reports on financial malpractices have been ignored by the civic administration. “In the last 19 years, the chief auditor has submitted 49 such reports to the civic administration. But the municipal commissioner has not acted on them,” he said. Incidentally, most of these reports are related to severe financial irregularities in the civic body. In addition to this, 72 various suggestions and proposals, related to civic development works, made by the corporators have been left unanswered by the municipal commissioner.
The municipal chief auditor is a part of the civic standing committee and his main duty is to oversee expenditure made by the civic administration. Bills payments, tender rates, receipts are all verified by his office.
A senior civic official said, “The reports are annual audit reports, which contain a summary of financial irregularities in civic tenders, payments, salaries etc. We had pointed out discrepancies in financial transactions in these action taken reports. After being submitted to the standing committee, they are then sent to civic administration for appropriate action.”
According to sources in chief auditor’s department, departments like water supply, sewerage and BEST have replied to the standing committee on some of their issues. “We have asked the municipal commissioner to send his reply as early as possible,” said standing committee chairman Rahul Shewale.