Give, Take & Forget?
AT the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Representatives, it was the
turn of public enterprises to come under scrutiny from the committee members Thursday. Not
unexpectedly, on the plate for discussions were negative fiscal performances of some 14
state-owned corporations. The discussions were based on the recently-presented Auditor
General’s report. Every year after the Auditor General’s report, various
financial irregularities committed by government agencies, including government-owned
public enterprises, come to the fore. As with previous years, the Auditor General’s
report has thrown up glaring financial indiscipline in public enterprises which seem to
excel in keeping its accounts messy and leaky. On examination of these public enterprises,
the Auditor General’s office found that even the most basic norms of financial
discipline were not maintained. The list of the public enterprises found wanting in fiscal
discipline are topped by some of the big ones like Nepal Electricity Authority, Nepal
Telecommunications Corporation, among others. They were found not to have bothered to
audit their accounts for the last two to three years. It does not take much to surmise
that when a public enterprise cares two hoots about the need for having an audit of its
finances year after year, there is something fishy. Without proper auditing, a public
enterprise cannot see for itself where it stands financially and which areas need to be
improved upon. Keeping the accounts unaudited for years robs that organisation, be it
public or private, of any chance to appreciate the financial position it is in and thus
rules out any sincere efforts to tackle fiscal problems. Most of the 14 public enterprises
under scrutiny had their last auditing done two or three years ago.
It was easy for the Auditor General to also see that unsettled advances
seemed to run like a common thread in the fiscal indiscipline in these public enterprises.
These public enterprises are also big debtors. For instance, Employees Provident Fund
accounts for the year 1999-2000 showed that it had made advances worth 186 million rupees
while it was under the debt of 468 million rupees. The advances and debts vary in amount
but others too are reeling under the burden of unsettled accounts and liabilities. It
seems to be the case of giving advances, running up debts and then just forgetting them
all. Given the rampant fiscal indiscipline in public enterprises, it is essential that the
government pulls up these organisations seriously and ask them to perform better even as
the government’s privatisation drive prepares to put on the block the enterprises
that need to be privatised immediately.
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