VIJAYAWADA: AP Finance Minister Buggana Rajendranath has refuted the CAG’s observation of a Rs 48,000 crore financial irregularity by the state government. The CAG report has said that the state government, without showing accounts, used as much amount.
The minister said the state government gave a clarification to CAG about the funds. “There are no special bills in CFMS. To identify book adjustment transactions in CFMS reporting, the name of special bills was used. There is no head on special bills.”
He said the finance department secretary wrote a letter to CAG giving its clarification on the doubts raised over the absence of funds, and explaining that no such cash transactions were held and no corruption had occurred.
The total expenditure for the financial year 2020-21 was Rs 2,03,448 crore (including state development corporation expenditure). Of this, Rs 66,470 crore was for government employees’ salaries, Rs 33,753 crore for debt and interest payments and Rs 65,447 crore for cash transfer schemes and other schemes, leaving a total of Rs 37,774 crore, it was explained.
The capital expenditure, he said, was Rs 18,145 crore, which included Nadu-Nedu, Manabadi, hospital works and road construction. “If all the details are so transparent and clear, then how can the TD level allegations of a Rs 48,000 crore misuse or corruption,” he asked.
The finance minister said the remarks and allegations made by TD leader and former finance minister Yanamala Ramakrishnudu on the state’s financial situation were untrue.
Rejecting the allegation that Rs 48,000 crore went into the hands of state government officials, the minister said it is important to realize that this is a ‘book adjustment transaction’ that has taken place by the end of the financial year. “There are no special bills in CFMS which was designed to be chaotic and flawed during the term of Chandrababu Naidu. This has caused much confusion,” he said.
The minister said that in fact there were no special bills in this system. “The CFMS reporting system is called the Special Bills for Identifying Book Adjustments, except that the head of the special bills is nothing.”
He said CFMS was not systematically organised. “That’s why book adjustment transactions are shown under special bills. This authority was transferred to the CFMS CEO by the finance ministry officials as the treasury officials do not currently have the facility to make book adjustment transactions in the CFMS.”
Rajendranath clarified that the entire process was done in accordance with the regulations of the Ministry of Finance and the Treasury.
“The finance secretary wrote a detailed letter to the CAG stating that at the end of the financial year, such a book adjustment transaction is done manually by the treasury officials before the CFMS system is established. After the formation of this system, this power was vested in the CEO of CFMS himself. No cash transaction was made in this whole transaction. How can corruption happen when there are no cash transactions?”
Rajendranth claimed that it was not this government that introduced this system but it was following the system introduced in 2018 by the then TD government.” Under this, the CFMS CEO was given the power to squander the remaining funds without spending in various branches. The TD government had shown 98,049 book-adjustment-transactions as special bills in 2018-29 and the YSRC government had shown only 54,183 book adjustment transactions as special bills in the 2020-21 financial year.”
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