Kathmandu. The latest annual report of the Citizen Investment Trust (CIT) has exposed the serious problem of accounting matching that has been going on for years between the Fund and the National Life Insurance Company. Billions of rupees of term life insurance of civil servants have not been accounted for, which has also raised questions about the insurance security of the employees.
More than 390 million insurance policies in limbo
According to the report, the fiscal year 2081. In 2018, the fund had sent Rs 3.31 billion to the National Life Insurance Company for the insurance of 316,499 employees. However, only 2,86,105 insurance policies have been renewed. Due to technical reasons and indication numbers, insurance policies worth Rs 39.79 crore of 14,144 participating employees could not be renewed.
Question of the Auditor General on the working style of the top management
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The Auditor General’s report has pointed out the weakness of the top management of the fund and the insurance company for this miscalculation. According to the report, the last stock of 81,289 participating employees was negative at Rs 465.3 million when the insurance fund transferred the data from the old software to the new one. In addition, there is no basis to prove that the insurance premium paid was as per the procedure as there is no age details of the employees.
Billions of dollars of funds are at risk as the top management has not been able to finalize this ‘bank reconciliation’ and accounting process for a long time. The Auditor General has clearly indicated that the financial statements have not been able to accurately depict the accounts due to lack of timely settlement.
Uttar Kumar Khatri, who is representing the Ministry of Finance, is the coordinator of the committee. The audit committee headed by him and the top management of the fund have not shown enough interest in controlling the irregularities in the accounts.
Conflict of interest
Chief Executive Officer of National Life Insurance Company Sundar Panthi is a member of the board of directors of Citizen Investment Trust. There is a conflict of interest as there is direct financial transaction between the fund and the government-owned life insurance company. Apart from this, there is also a risk of creating confusion in policy decisions as a board member of the life insurance company in an attempt to reconcile the accounts of both organizations.
Accountability?
Despite repeated reminders and audit shortcomings, the top management of both the organizations has not shown any urgency to solve this problem. The fund’s management has claimed that it is updating the personal details of the employees and adjusting the negative accounts. However, the report seems to be silent on making the officials of the concerned bodies responsible and accountable even when the accounts of billions of rupees have been misunderstood for a long time.
Billions of rupees in the accounts are sure to create a lot of confusion and hassle in the future insurance benefits of the employees.
