Ministry asked to reclaim ticket cost from former minister

Auditor General Niyaz Ibrahim has requested Communication Ministry to reclaim the cost of a ticket for an overseas trip, for which state funds were used, from former Communication Minister Mahmood Raazee.

This recommendation was stated in the Audit Report of Ministry of Civil Aviation and Communication for 2009, issued last Monday.

The report stated that Raazee travelled to Bali, Indonesia to attend a ministerial level meeting of Asia Pacific Telecommunity (APT), for which APT had agreed to cover the costs of the ticket, accommodation, and food, however, Raazee used the ministry’s budget to pay for his ticket which cost MVR 23,927, which was to be repaid to the ministry by APT – but there was no documentation to indicate that this money was repaid to the ministry.

The Auditor General advised to reclaim the cost of the ticket, and in the event that this is not possible, to send the full details of the pending payment to Ministry of Finance and Treasury as per Article 3.04 of the Public finance Act to settle the issue.

Another issue highlighted in the Audit report is efforts by the ministry in 2009, to pay MVR 68,000 to a company that installed a Biometric Attendance System before the installation was completed. The report noted that there was no documentation to indicate that the work had been completed before the company sent its bill to the ministry.

It was also mentioned in the report that estimates were submitted for this project by three companies, and the project was awarded to the company that received the least points in the evaluation process.

The Auditor General advised to take action against those responsible for this, and also recommended that a case be filed to Anti-Corruption Commission in relation to this issue as the project was awarded in violation of the relevant policies.

The report also noted that MVR 106,702 was paid as overtime for staff of National Centre for Information Technology in 2009, but there was no record of the staff having worked overtime.

The Auditor General noted that the lack of proper documentation made it impossible to determine the legitimacy of these overtime payments.

The Auditor General recommended that action be taken against individuals who had been negligent in maintaining proper documentation regarding expenses made from the state budget.