Islamabad, Apr 12 : A new audit report presented before Pakistan's National Assembly has divulged financial irregularities to the tune of Rs 26 billion in the country's defence ministry's accounts.

The irregularities have been detected in various departments of the defence ministry, including Military Land and Cantonments, Military Engineering Services and Defence Production Division.

According to the audit report, major irregularities worth Rs 23.076 billion were found in the accounts of the Military Land and Cantonments (ML and Cs) Department.

The Auditor-General of Pakistan (AGP) in its report for the year 2005-06 has also detected irregularities of Rs 3.304 billion in the accounts of Defence Production Division, Rs 254.259 million in Army, Rs150.739m in Military Engineering Services (MES), Rs 19.714m in Air Force and Rs 15.693m in the accounts of Navy.

Deputy Speaker Faisal Karim Kundi referred the report, which was finalised in July 2007, to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) for a para-wise discussion on it, reported the Dawn.

The report also highlights irregularities of Rs 222.533 million in the accounts of Cantonment Boards of Rawalpindi, Chaklala, Walton and Bahawalpur due to 'non-recovery of composition fee and lease money, unauthorised commercial use of residential property and encroachments on defence lands, unauthorised construction of commercial buildings and occupation of defence lands due to non-renewal of lease agreement.

It observes that the director-general procurement (Army) paid 2.21 million dollars in advance to a firm in Rawalpindi as the cost of 130 diesel engines for trucks in 2002.

The report has also pointed out "unnecessary advance payment" of Rs 246.961 million to a radio telecom company in March 2004 by the DG Munitions Production (DGMP) for upgradation of 2100 radio sets.

"Deliveries were required to be made in 12 months after receipt of 100 per cent advance payment of foreign exchange and 50 per cent of local charges and receipt of radio sets from the Central Ordinance Depot (COD), Rawalpindi," the report said.

It further said that as per record of the DGMP, Rawalpindi, the requisite radio sets were not delivered to the firm for upgradation till June 2005, thus resulting "unnecessary blockade of public money" which was paid to the contractor in advance.

ANI