Forensic audit to crosscheck MC, LIT infra works of 10 yrs

Ludhiana: With local bodies minister Navjot Singh Sidhu raising a banner of suspicion, all infrastructure works of municipal corporation and Ludhiana Improvement Trust carried out in the past 10 years will have to go through

forensic audit

.

Sidhu ordered the independent review and forensic audit of civic bodies.

A private firm — Grand Thornton Limited — has been appointed as an independent review and forensic audit agency.

The audit in Amritsar and Jalandhar is already in progress. Releasing the interim audit report of Amritsar MC, improvement trust and sewerage board, Sidhu had “traced a Rs 100 crore scam carried out during the previous regime.

On Thursday, the company representatives met MC commissioner K P Brar and gave a presentation about their working. They also demanded records related with major MC branches, including building and road, health, operation and maintenance cell.

The forensic audit teams will also scan the bank accounts of MC and LIT as done in Amritsar. They also met officials of improvement trust to seek records.

The sources said several measurement books and G-8 books (used to maintain record of payments to contractors) of several years of the MC had been missing. Despite objections raised by the audit branch of civic body, officials had never bothered to give records for audit.

MC Commissioner Brar said the audit would leave some positive impact on the civic body and officials. She said it would help bring out the shortcomings in the system and solutions will be found once they are aware of problems.

A official, on the condition of anonymity, said forensic audit will bring more trouble for employees. If the records don’t match during audit, direct action will be taken against the employees.

He said there are no chances of embezzlement at large scale in the MC as it had been going through financial crisis for the past 10 years.