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completely based on four audit reports carried out by the most prestigious and authentic official statutory body, the Office of the Comptroller and the Auditor General (CAG). It made a passing reference to annual audit -- without mentioning even once that it was done by no less an institution than CAG -- and stated that “Almost all issues are resolved when clarifications are given”.
Our question to DGHS is please state clearly were these audit objections resolved and if so let the public, the media and us know the answers so that we can correct ourselves.
Below are some of the observations by CAG:
“During each fiscal year, such anomalies/objections by/at the CMSD were consistently discovered during the audit,” said one of the audit reports.
“The government incurred a huge financial loss as the machines were supplied forcefully by the CMSD to the hospitals despite having no demand, and those went out of order for remaining unused,” it said.
Following are the accusations the DGHS made in the advertisement:
• The CMSD never received Tk 3,952 crore in three years, and hence the amount alleged as graft is imaginary.
• There is no explanation of what protocol has been bypassed, which incurred a Tk 15 crore loss, and how the calculation was done.
• The machinery was not used properly, so there is a loss. How can you say the equipment is not used? Are you operating the equipment?
• No equipment is pushed to any hospital as a matter of rules. Equipment is procured based on demands, which are also assessed for their needs.
• In the alleged loss of Tk 266 crore in 24 government hospitals from 2014-18, may I know how this loss has been ascertained?
• All the alleged losses don’t equate to Tk 459 crore.
We repeat The Daily Star report is based on four audit reports on different public healthcare institutions under the health ministry by the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General of Bangladesh, the government’s supreme audit institution. All these figures have been taken from the official CAG report and not ours.
As far as the CMSD’s Tk 3,952 crore is concerned, The Daily Star report did not state that CMSD’s budget was Tk 3,952 crore; rather, it was the total budget of the different public healthcare institutions and directorates under the health ministry that were audited by the CAG during the period.
The audits called for taking necessary measures to ensure proper utilisation of public funds when allocating CMSD’s budget.
Regarding the accusation that no equipment is pushed to any hospital, the CAG audits said, “Machinery was supplied despite having no necessity and demand letter. In this case, CMSD has pushed the machinery into different institutions to avoid forfeiting the budget allocation, which was not as per the rule.”
The DGHS instead of issuing a rejoinder to us -- which is the traditional practice -- went for paid advertisement. This it did, in our view, to avoid further questioning and investigation by us. It went for advertisement in which instead of answering the questions raised by the CAG it opted for abusive language against the paper. We consider the advertisement as wasting public money to avoid answering to the public and ensuring accountability. It raises a serious question: Can a public authority use taxpayers’ money to castigate the media that raised public interest questions based on findings of a statutory body like the CAG? This itself should form a subject of investigation.
We restate that our report and all figures in it are taken from the CAG report. We therefore stand by our report and draw public attention to the fact that false and distorted information were published by DGHS using taxpayers’ money.
A note for our fellow newspapers. Advertisements like any other content cannot be published without verification. When an advertisement contains allegations against others, it is obligatory on the part of media to contact the party accused and its comments be taken before publication. An advertisement is no exception. In this case the responsibility is on both the advertiser and the publication to ensure that advertisement contents are not false and the language is decent.