More than one hundred audit officers under the Department of Cooperatives (DoC) might face stern punitive measures for their alleged negligence in auditing multipurpose co-operative societies which resulted in massive financial loss to hundreds of thousands of people across the country, sources said.
In the face of widespread allegations against the audit officers, the DoC authority issued letters in July last year to its joint registrars in all the divisions to furnish report on the issue within three months so that the department can take steps on the basis of it.
But the department later extended the time frame for submitting report following request from the divisional offices.
According to the sources, the department has so far taken action against thirty auditors and is in the process of taking action against others.
"We have initially identified thirty of our audit officers guilty of not performing their duties properly and taken punitive measures against them," additional registrar (admin) of DoC, Amiya Kumer Chattapadhya told the FE Sunday.
"Their negligence caused immense sufferings to a large segment of people of the country. Departmental action would be taken against the officers who have been found responsible for negligence of their duties," he added.
Besides, divisional authorities would also take against the officers whose offences have been found to be comparatively minor, the additional registrar informed.
Md Saiduzzaman, another additional (Law) registrar said the number of guilty auditors might cross one hundred.
"Reports against a good number of other audit officers are about to reach the department. Action would be taken against them once the reports are available," he added.
He said the divisional heads in the meantime have also decided to file cases against a good number of auditors for their minor offences.
According to Mr Saiduzzaman, actions like suspension of increment, demotion, putting to the lowest of time scale might be taken in the case of minor irregularities.
In the case of major irregularities, the auditors might face demotion, suspension or even termination.
However, according to different divisional and district heads of the department, most of the auditors either innocently or intentionally overlooked clauses while auditing causing massive financial irregularities.
"The audit officers mostly could not imagine the future impact of their negligence. According to our findings, most of the auditors gave audit clearance in exchange of money," a joint registrar told the FE preferring anonymity.
However, there are widespread allegations that taking the advantage of carelessness or unholy involvement in auditing by the auditors, the managements of the multipurpose cooperative societies (MCSs) succeeded in cheating a large segment of people financially.
The MCSs collected billions of taka mainly from the housewives, local guardians of non-resident Bangladeshis and pensioners alluring them of higher rate of interest against their deposits.
Later on, at one stage of their collections, the management of MCSs went into hiding depriving hundreds of thousands of innocent people across the country.
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