Hon. MP Ugyen Wangdi shared his opinion while deliberating on the Review Report of PAC
Channel: Druk Phuensum Tshogpa
Date: 14/12/2021

Public Accounts Committee presents Review Report on Annual Audit Report 2020 to the Joint Sitting.

The Chairperson of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), Hon’ble Ugyen Tshering (NC, Paro) presented the Committee’s Review Report on Annual Audit Report 2020, Follow up on Review Reports of AAR 2010-2019, Performance Audit Reports and implementation status of the resolutions to the Joint Sitting of the Parliament today.

The House voiced their concern on the reports of high irregularities, the majority of which were Non-Performing Loans, Excess/Over/Inadmissible Payment, and Outstanding advances, and the need to look into resolving these issues.

The House passed the three recommendations of the Committee which called for the Executive to enforce the judgments passed by the Court and put in place a mechanism to hold the agency concerned accountable; strict implementation of the Royal Audit Authority’s decision to treat the cases of excess payment not be limited to restituting the amount but also holding individuals accountable (officials and parties) for restoring the compromised structure/infrastructure to a desired level of quality even if it may require dismantling the entire structures; and, the heads of agencies to take up the responsibility to assume the full accountability for any audit irregularities/observations. 

The House assigned the first two recommendations to the Government for implementation with instructions to submit a report on the status of the execution of judgments of all the courts in the Joint Sitting of the next session. The third recommendation was assigned to the RAA with majority support of the House through raise of hands.

The House also deliberated on the Follow-up review reports of the Annual Audit Report 2010-2019. It was reported that as of 30th September 2021 total unresolved irregularities of Nu. 2891.05M were reported for the period of 2010-2019 with 40% of irregularities from hydropower projects and 60% from non-hydro agencies. The issue of accountability and responsibility for the irregularities and the lack thereof was debated. The Public Accounts Committee was directed to carry out detailed research on the issues of the unresolved irregularities and report back to the House.