Monday, December 23, 2024
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Presidential Secretariat disregards financial rules and regulations

Sri Lanka Presidential Secretariat has disregarded financial rules and regulations in carrying out its day to day administration and its key performance indicators are far below the expectations, Public Accounts Committee, determined.

Its percentage of compliance with the financial rules and regulations and Key Performance Indicators-80 committee report revealed.

Several shortcomings were identified on the performance evaluation for year 2016 and the Committee stresses that the concerned institution must pay their special attention in overcoming these faults.

Fixed Asset Register and Fixed Assets Register on computer accessories and software had not been maintained on up to date basis.

The Board of Surveys had not been carried out on the due date for the year in review & the reports had not been submitted to the Auditor General, the report highlighted.

No actions had been taken for the recommendations on excesses and shortages & other recommendations revealed by the Board of surveys, it indicated.

Daily running charts and monthly summaries of running charts of fleet of vehicles had not been submitted for the Auditor General on regular basis.

Financial commitments had been made exceeding the provisions of authorized approved limits violating financial regulations, parliamentary committee alleged.

There had been outstanding loan balances remaining over one year. No action had been taken to clear time expired deposits in the General Deposit Account as per the provisions of F.R. 571, the report said.

The Right to information Act provides for the RIT Commission to secure necessary financial allocations from the Ministry of Finance.

Yet it is seen that for now the Commission is dependent on the Presidential Secretariat.

One main reason for such dependency is due to non allocation of funds for the functioning of the Commission by the government in its 2017 budget and therefore the Commission receiving Rs.1.8 million from presidential allocations, the report observed.

(LI)