THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: In an attempt to preempt the embezzlement of public money at the local level, mobile teams will be set up to conduct surprise checks on cash books of at least 10 per cent of local governments in each district every month. The ‘flash checks’ will be conducted under the supervision of the Local Self Government secretary. The mobile teams will forward inspection reports to the concerned heads of departments. It has been decided to put in charge the following officers in charge of the flash checks: regional director of urban affairs (corporations and municipalities); deputy directors and assistant directors of panchayats (grama panchayats); assistant development commissioners (block panchayats); district level officers of the finance inspection wing (district panchayats).
The Fifth Finance Commission which went into the finances of the local bodies had found that a large number of local bodies did not keep daily accounts. In some cases, the Commission found that accounts had not been entered for over a month. “There should be zero tolerance of the tendency not to close cash books and not entering receipts and payments every day,” the commission report says. The local bodies deal with innumerable accounts like plan, maintenance, PWD and central accounts. “Since the money involved is huge, every paise should be faithfully and efficiently accounted,” said Dr M A Oommen, the state’s foremost expert on decentralisation.
Each local body is supposed to enter the opening balance, amount received, amount spent and net closing balance every day. Money left unaccounted leaves huge scope for corruption. “Later on, when exigencies of audit control force official to reconcile accounts, figures will be fabricated. If the situation continues the local government system will hurtle towards a delivery crisis,” a top local self government department official said. More than accounting inefficiency, technical incompetence is at the heart of the malaise. Dr Thomas Joseph, who had carried out a study on the reliability problems of annual financial statements of local governments, said that persons deputed in a panchayat to enter data had no operational knowledge of the Sankya software which is used to enter data in local bodies.
