Corruption and irregularities go up (Economy)
Thimphu, June 25: Despite the government makes more statements to curb the corruption, even to expel the parliamentarians, volume of corruption in the country continues to grow.
According to the latest report by Royal Audit Authority (RAA), the corruption volume for the year 2007 has increased by some 6.5 percent compared to 2006 reaching a new height of Nu 200 million.
The report said, the increase has been credited to intense investigation and shift in modality of finding cases of corruption.
The Ministry of Works and Human Settlement (MWHS) rests at the top of the corruption list amounting to Nu 48.6 million followed by Dzongkhag administration with Nu 40.19 million.
The report notes that “Irregularities in advances, constructions and payments continued to increase and formed a major portion of irregularities, despite the government being alerted on the issue in the previous year.”
The Ministry of Education records the highest cases of strong indicators of fraud, corruption and embezzlement under budgetary agencies amounting to Nu 13.6 million, with a single scam in the procurement of science laboratory equipment.
Mismanagement of funds, properties, revenue and taxes amounted to Nu 23.173 million, where MWHS tops the list with Nu 16.159 million, followed by finance with Nu 4.663 million, information and communication with Nu 1.11 million and agriculture with Nu 0.534 million.
A sum of Nu 67.791 million sniffed off on over, inadmissible, double and irregular payments while Nu 56.800 million on advances. The Ministry of Finance has the highest irregularity of Nu 13.059 million in such cases, followed by MWHS with Nu 10.801 million, agriculture Nu 7.815 million and dzongkhags administration with Nu 30.960 million.
Total unresolved cases due to violation of laws, rules and procurement norms amounted to Nu 14.656 million where MWHS against top the list with Nu 11.364 million.
However, corruption in corporations, financial institutions and non-government organizations has decreased to 54.2 million compared to Nu 80.8 million previous year.
Youth Development Fund (YDF), headed by a royal family, records the highest amount in fraud, corruption and embezzlement with Nu 2.7 million among the 13 corporations list in the report, followed by Food Corporation of Bhutan (FCB) with Nu 1.9 million. Bhutan News Service