Nagaland Public Rights Awareness and Action Forum (NPRAAF) has come up with another round of exposés. According to a NPRAAF statement issued on Sunday, State’s Finance Department (Budget & Monitoring Cell) had released an amount of Rs 14.59 crore to the School Education Department for providing winter clothing to elementary students of government schools in 2017-18.
The Drawal Authority was issued on May 19 2017 under Demand No 31. The release was made against “re-appropriation of fund from Planning Machinery,” the statement said.
NPRAAF said it had urged the Finance department on earlier occasions to explain what it meant by “re-appropriation of fund”, but the latter chose to remain silent.
The Forum said this was being viewed seriously and NPRAAF was strategising on the possible ways of how responsibilities could be fixed upon the Finance and other departments involved in misappropriation of funds.
“With Winter Season already at the doorsteps and the fund released already six months back, the clothing should have reached each and every elementary student.
Therefore, NPRAAF encourages the respective schools particularly students, parents/guardians and VEC members to find out whether such winter clothing has been received and accordingly take up the matter with the respective authorities,” the statement appealed.
Fraudulent withdrawal: According to NPRAAF, the Finance Department also released Rs 8,31,490 on August, 31 2016 under Demand No 31 to be withdrawn from under Head of Account No 8550 – Civil Advances for “payment of GPF fraudulently drawn in respect of 4 nos of Primary Teachers.”
The Forum said such a fraudulent drawal reflected inefficiency of the employees handling the matters, besides forcing it to believe that such fraud would be difficult to commit unless some government insiders assisted the fraudsters.
“Hence, NPRAAF demands the responsible authority to respond whether any action has been taken upon the employees for their incompetence and whether inquiry was initiated and the report thereof,” it demanded.
“With such fraudulent drawals of the hard-earned money/savings, no government employee would feel secure about their financial savings in the hands of the State. Even if such savings are to be paid by the government in spite of frauds, the employees would face difficulties to claim their savings when the time of fraud and their financial need are simultaneous, not forgetting the unreasonable bureaucratic and clerical delays,” it added.
According to NPRAAF, the Finance department also released Rs 15.88 lakh to the School Education Department on August 4, 2016 being the “looted money by unidentified gunmen” on September 19, 2009.
“Whether appropriate action has been taken against employees for any dereliction of duty, the final inquiry report, preventive measures taken against such incidents are some of the issues that NPRRAF urges upon the responsible authorities to clarify.
NPRAAF asserted its position that every single penny meant for public should be accounted for and cautions the government not to treat amounts of few lakhs as meagre amounts since such attitude would encourage anti-social elements to continue committing crimes,” the Forum warned.
NPRAAF also appealed to the people to remain steadfast with it since it was in active consultation with legal luminaries to ensure that all issues taken up were brought to logical conclusions.