PAF says 75-80pc of budget spent on community bodies
KATHMANDU, MAR 31
The Poverty Alleviation Fund (PAF) on Monday claimed that it had been spending 75-80 percent of its budget on the management of community organisations which work to improve the living standards of the poor in rural areas.
The PAF made such claims at a time when the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) has filed cases against PAF’s 14 high-level officials in the Special Court on corruption charges.
A corruption charge-sheet the anti-graft body filed against PAF officials at the Special Court on March 11 has accused them of excessive spending and submitting fake bills. The PAF operates under the Prime Minister and Cabinet Office.
PAF officials including Executive Director Raj Babu Shrestha have been accused of embezzling Rs27.86 million during two fiscal years 2010-12.
PAF Act 2006 bars operating expenses in excess of Rs50 million or 4 percent of the total funds allocated for the projects, whichever is higher, if the amount is more than Rs1 billion. However, the high level officials were found to have violated the regulation.
“The portfolio managers should have done at least 60 percent of their work in the field, but they are found to have submitted false records and statements without going to the field at all,” said the CIAA in a statement.
PAF Vice-Chairman Yuva Raj Pandey said a major chunk of the PAF’s budget had been disbursed to the community organisations account. According to him, misappropriation of funds could have taken place due to defects in the administrative process. “We have been working to correct the procedural errors in the distribution system,” he added.
Pandey claimed that the funds that the CIAA has accused PAF officials of embezzling amount to 3-4 percent of the PAF’s operating expenses. He also said that the PAF’s operating costs were comparatively lower compared to similar other programmes directed at poverty alleviation.
A former PAF employee said that that PAF officials could have misappropriated the money in collusion with members of the community organisations. “Although the PAF Act has a framework for maintaining transparency, there is enough room for misappropriating funds through the allocations made for field work,” said the source.
The PAF currently conducts its programmes in 55 districts through 400 partner organisations and 27,000 community organisations. According to the PAF, more than Rs8 billion has been put in the revolving funds of the community organisations.
The PAF said that its programmes had been benefiting 3 million people belonging to 700,000 households. It claimed that its efforts had helped to reduce poverty by 17 percent in the last seven years in the areas where it has been operating.
A study carried out by the Centre for Economic Development and Administration (CEDA) of Tribhuvan University in six sample districts concluded that the number of poor people there had declined to 33.1 percent from 50.7 in the past seven years. The centre had surveyed 3,000 households in Doti, Dailekh, Jumla, Rolpa, Rautahat and Humla districts where the PAF has been operating its programmes.
Source: The Kathmandu Post
