Opposition decides to approach govt over audit report rule violation

KOCHI: Putting the corporation ruling front under pressure, the CPM-led opposition has decided to approach the state government against the mayor, deputy mayor and the officials concerned for their alleged violation of established norms in the Municipality Act. According to the opposition, the corporation concealed the latest audit report to suppress corruption charges. The opposition move came while discussing the audit report released recently for the year 2018-2019 as the council met for a second time at the Town Hall

“As per the Municipality Act, the corporation has to discuss the audit report within a month. The corporation not only concealed the report from the public but also tried to avoid a discussion on the same to support corruption. It is a clear case of rule violation. The irregularities and corruption charges mentioned in the audit report had to be discussed,” said Opposition leader K J Antony in the council.
Though the corporation decided to discuss the audit report from 2015 to 2019, opposition pressure forced the ruling UDF to postpone the discussion on the audit reports from 2015 to 2018 to the next council.

The audit report for the 2018-19 fiscal, which was released last month, found serious financial irregularities under various heads, including tax collection and waste management. The report said the corporation’s inefficiency in implementing digital tax collection affected its revenue significantly. Due to the non-implementation of the digital facility, a lion’s share of revenue continued to be collected through manual receipts which led to a leakage of funds. 

It also found that receipts that were audited and cancelled years ago were misused for tax collection.
The report said `4.5 lakh was missing in the books as fake receipt numbers were written in the booking registers of the Mattanchery Town Hall and the Kalvathi Community Hall. It is also alleged that the receipt books used during the audit period were not given to the audit department for inspection.

“If the corporation had discussed the audit report, several corruption charges would have come out. They don’t want to discuss it. By concealing the report and not holding a healthy discussion on the audit report, the mayor supported corruption in the corporation,” said V P Chandran, opposition councillor. Meanwhile, Deputy Mayor K R Premkumar and senior Congress leader A B Sabu refuted the allegations saying that no council had discussed the audit report properly.Though the mayor tried to clarify, especially on the controversy surrounding the purchase of a new car, the opposition walked out.