The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), in its State Finances Audit Report for the year ended March 31, 2023, pertaining to Andhra Pradesh, has pointed out that the A.P. Comprehensive Financial Management System (CFMS) was “not only weak and vulnerable but also failed to provide the envisaged outcomes,” which included real-time information availability, facilitating agility in decision-making, speed and certainty of service delivery, convenience to all the stakeholders, minimal reconciliations, and improved financial discipline.
The non-enabling of ‘Duplicate Check’ of the bills during payment in the CFMS application resulted in excess payments from the exchequer, it said.
“This depicts weak processing controls in the application, besides causing excess payments of ₹968 crore relating to 1,41,917 bills between April 2018 and September 2021,” the report said.
The administrative departments were informed of such payments and recommended recovery, if not done already.
“Due to non-provision of ‘Limit Check’ in the application, excessive pensionary benefits were drawn in respect of 2,545 pensioners, covering 193 Treasury Officers / DDOs between April 2018 and September 2021, involving an amount of ₹218.15 crore,” the CAG pointed out.
The management of Deposit Accounts in the CFMS showcased failure in both the design and control aspects of the system, it said.
“It is recommended that the department incorporate necessary controls to avoid repetitive and excess payments,” the report pointed out.
It was further noticed that 1,44,493 Personal Deposit (PD) accounts were created through the backend of CFMS without the involvement of the Cash and Debt Management Section of the Finance Department. Further, PD administrators were not involved / aware of lapsing of funds to the tune of ₹71,568.44 crore (carried out as part of year-end activity for the period from March 2019 to March 2021) from PD accounts in 3,41,410 cases, as these were affected by the CFMS backend team.
Thus, the system lacked effective design, process and validation controls on the creation of multiple PD accounts, adjustment of amounts, and cancellation of bills through a single platform, ignoring key process owners, posing a potential risk to the application integrity, the CAG report said.
Published – November 22, 2024 07:18 pm IST