Audit objection over Tk 10 lakh

Special Correspondent:

Women affairs Department’s Sirajganj district office and upazila offices have been turned into dens of corruption and irregularities due to lack of proper monitoring by the higher authorities concerned, it is alleged.

A report submitted by the audit and monitoring team of the Social Security Audit Department has focused such a poor scenario of the concerned officials’ corruptions and irregularities by using fake bill-vouchers in the name of different training workshops or seminars. Besides, most of the officers have been withdrawing their salaries month after month without attending at the offices regularly. Some offices are often found shut down during the office hours. Manpower crisis is blamed as the reason behind such dilapidated condition of the women affairs department’s Sirajganj offices.

Concerned people seem that, if proper investigation is conducted, the documents and proofs of various grafts and anomalies of the relevant officials will come to light.

They urged intervention of the ACC to find out the anomalies of the Women affairs Department in Sirajganj and its upazila level offices to ease the reform move of incumbent government.

The monitoring and audit team formed by the Social Security Audit Department has found evidences of irregularities and corruption worth more than Tk 1 million in various sectors including training workshops and seminars organized by the Sirajganj district and upazila offices of the Women’s Affairs Department.

The audit report revealed that, the money was embezzled through fake bill-vouchers in the Fiscal Year (FY)  2023-2024.

According to the audit objection documents, in the FY 2023-2024, the Women’s Affairs Department organized various training workshops and seminars under the Mother and Child Support Programmes and two-day SBCC workshops on Module-01 at the district and upazila levels.

For the programmes, Tk 580 was fixed as the hospitality expenses against per head, Tk 1000 against each banner of the training workshop, Tk 5000 for training materials, Tk 6000 for miscellaneous expenses, Tk 1000 as the honorarium of each participant, Tk 10,000 as venue rent for district level programme and Tk 12,000 for upazila level venue.

The audit and monitoring team verified the bill vouchers of the programmes and found discrepancies and errors.

For example:

a) Despite being from different institutions, all the vouchers were filled with the same style and same person.

b) In some cases, the signature of the individual or institution was taken on white paper.

c) Without holding any seminar or training programme, bills were withdrawn by fraudulent showing seminars and training workshops.

d) The Upazila Nirbahi Office’s own pad was not used anywhere.

e) Money receipts were not given to the trainees.

f) There was no stock entry and disbursement account for the purchased goods.

g) There was no date of approval of the training workshops in the master roll.

h) The date of the cash memos was tampered with.

I) In many cases, serious irregularities were noticed in the audit objections, such as showing the payment of venue rent on white paper and in many cases, the District or Upazila Women’s Affairs Officer himself/ herself withdrew the venue rent money by forgery.

In this regard, the conscious citizens say that, although the money is mainly allocated for social security of the poor, distressed and helpless people in the society, the distressed people are being deprived of the benefits due to some corrupt and dishonest officials of the Women affairs Department.

As a result, all the government’s plans and development efforts go in vain.

On the other hand, most of the illiterate distressed and helpless women do not know or understand anything about these corruptions and irregularities.

As a result, there is no one to protest. That is why, the officails are embezzling crores of taka from the government funds allocated in the name of various women’s organizations and programmes by using fake papers especially bills and vouchers.

Many say that, as the women’s affairs officers have been working in the same workplace in their home districts for a long time and there is no proper supervision by the higher authorities, such irregularities have now become the norm in the departments.

The audit objection is one of the proofs of the corruptions and anomalies.

The concerned have blamed the negligence of the senior officials for these irregularities.

Nabo Kumar Karmakar, former member of the Sirajganj Swartha Rakkha Committee said, “The money allocated by the government for improving the living standards of the most distressed and helpless women in the society is going to the wallets of officials. This is very shameful matter. These corrupt officials have been embezzling crores of taka in the name of poverty alleviation of the women. But, embezzling one taka through corruption is the same as embezzling thousands of crores of taka. So, those all should bring to book.”

Terming the audit objection as fabricated, Ullapara Women’s Affairs Officer Nilufar Yasmin said, “We have prepared all kinds of documents and papers properly. Therefore, no one can raise such objections and shake our foundation.”

Chowhali Upazila Women’s Affairs Officer Shamim Zahid Talukder said, “The amount on which the audit objection has been raised will be deposited in the state treasury. So, there will be no problem for anyone.”

Khadija Nasrin, who currently is serving as upazila women’s affairs officer for Tarash and Raiganj, did not respond for comment.

While contacted over cell phone, Kaniz Fatema, Deputy Director (DD) of the District Women’s Affairs Department in Sirajganj on condition of texting the name of this reporter and the newspaper to her mobile phone said that, “The audit objection was brought over seminars. But we did not hold seminars, we held training workshops. That is, the inefficient audit team gave wrong report.”