A former accountant of Bhutan Power Corporation (BPC) in Paro allegedly embezzled funds amounting to around Nu 1.42 M. According to the Anti-Corruption Commission’s (ACC) investigation report, she also allegedly forged signatures and submitted fake bills to settle advances and repay her borrowings. BPC reported the case to the ACC in 2018.
As per the investigation report, she allegedly misused the Systems, Application and Production (SAP) system. She allegedly prepared fictitious muster roll sheets and submitted them to either settle the advances taken by her or to repay her personal borrowings from other non-employees.
Besides that, she allegedly forged fictitious material bills and submitted without the knowledge of the contractors and claimed as material advances. She allegedly forged the manager’s signature.
She also allegedly used other employees of BPC to withdraw most of the Tax Deducted at Source (TDS) amount. The Staff Welfare Fund (SWF) and the Chothuen Tshogpa contributions were deposited in her daughter’s account. Fictitious bills were allegedly submitted and claimed during the year’s closing. The advances against her name were adjusted in the SAP system but the cash was not deposited in the bank. She has allegedly misused the direct General Ledger posting feature and fraudulently claimed without any supporting documents.
She had allegedly diverted Nu 179,140 which was staff payables like travel claims and leave encashment into her daughter’s account and some non-employees’ accounts. Later, at the time of making payment vouchers for other genuine travel claims, she allegedly booked the same amount from the system through direct General Ledger (GL) posting which the manager was not aware of. These staff were included in the new list and accordingly the payments were settled. This had resulted in double payments from the system for one claim.
In order to misappropriate the public funds, she allegedly colluded with two other officials of BPC. One of the officials had allegedly processed the approval for a muster roll work for the conversion of a powerhouse to an electrical museum, estimated at Nu 60,388 which was taken as advance by the former accountant. And the other official allegedly submitted a fictitious muster roll sheet for Nu 75,516 by forging thumb impressions of 11 workers.
Likewise, a fake muster roll sheet amounting to Nu 42,999 was allegedly submitted for the work done by 13 muster roll workers. One of the officials has signed the muster roll sheet, though the work was neither entered in the system nor in the measurement book. However, the amount was paid as travel claims to five employees and one non-employee to direct GL posting.
Further, the former accountant in collusion with another official had allegedly withdrawn Nu 80,000 as advance for daily wage workers which was never executed. The fictitious muster roll payment of Nu 72,576 was submitted to settle the advance.
An employee of a construction company based in Thimphu in collusion with one of the employees of BPC had allegedly claimed a material advance of Nu 150,843 which is around 75 per cent of Nu 201,125 by preparing and submitting the fictitious eight bills of black stone that were never supplied in the construction. Later, Nu 88,000 was paid as an additional advance from the four missing bills (of which two were black stones) and the amount was taken by the accountant using the current deposit account of another construction company. Subsequently, when the final bill was made to one work by the construction company, an excess payment of Nu 88,000 was paid to the company to cover up the earlier payment.
Moreover, the accountant had allegedly submitted fictitious bills and claimed Nu 481,600 as material advance without the knowledge of the contractor of a construction company based in Paro. The signature of the manager was allegedly forged in the payment voucher and the bills were initiated by one of the BPC officials.
The TDS amounts were also allegedly misappropriated whereby its cheques amounting to Nu 157,686 were mostly prepared in the name of a woman. She has allegedly used the woman to withdraw the amount for her. She was even found to have deposited the SWF amount and CT contribution amounting to Nu 82,594 in her daughter’s account, of which some SWF were paid but CT amounts were never deposited.
She has allegedly submitted fake bills and claimed Nu 15,288 for tea, lunch and dinner during the closing year of 2017 as reimbursement. Similarly, she had also submitted a bill of automobile workshop in Paro and fraudulently claimed Nu 10,000 as recoup for the maintenance of the office vehicle.
She had also taken Nu 52,910 as advance for a farewell dinner for four outgoing employees. She had allegedly made deductions from the staff’s salary to settle the earlier advance but it was used for herself. The amount was shown as adjusted in the system but the actual cash was not deposited in the imprest account. In addition, she had fraudulently claimed an additional amount of Nu 48,000 through the direct GL posting along with the genuine expenses of Nu 6,000, taking advantage of the absence of the manager.
She is allegedly found liable for the offence of embezzlement of funds or securities by a public servant under section 52 of the Anti-Corruption Act of Bhutan 2011.
As per the investigation report, she colluded with four other individuals. They allegedly abused functions, participated in the offence, forgery and deceptive practice.
The case was forwarded to the Office of the Attorney General.
Tshering Zam
