PESHAWAR   -   Au­dit Report 2022-23 re­leased by the Auditor General of Pakistan dis­closed irregularities worth billions of rupees in BRT project.

The Auditor Gener­al of Pakistan’s audit re­port related to BRT pro­ject 2022-23 has been released wherein ex­penditure of Rs13 billion in Trans Peshawar was done without technical approval.

Expenditure incurred under various contracts of BRT and unnecessary payments of Rs7.7 mil­lion were made in the form of salaries and al­lowances.

According to Audit Re­port, KP government has provided huge sub­sidy in the projects built on loans and unjustified expenditure incurred in BRT project despite SSB.

The report highlight­ed the company does not have details of income from rental and other sources and Trans Pe­shawar made illegal pay­ments of Rs13 billion to companies without get­ting approval from the competent authority.

Contractors are benefit­ing from the contract for not getting approval from the law department and purchase and other re­cords from Trans Pesha­war sought but not provid­ed, said the audit report. 

Savings due to increase in dollar value have not been deposited in the government treasury and due to non-increase in rent, the government exchequer has suffered a loss of 3 billion rupees in the form of subsidy, the audit report said. 

Fares not hiked despite hike in petroleum prod­uct prices, the reports said. The provincial gov­ernment had claimed to run the project without subsidy, the reports said. Income from the project has not been deposited in the government treasury, the reports further said.