The three autonomous district councils of Meghalaya must upgrade and upscale their accounting practices to make them more in line with modern financial reporting standards and improve their accounting and auditing framework.
This was stated by District Council Affairs Minister Lahkmen Rymbui at a one day state conference on ‘Strengthening the Finances and Financial Accountability of Autonomous District Councils in Meghalaya’ here today, organised by the Meghalaya Institute of Governance in collaboration with the Department of Economics at NEHU.
This was a first of its kind initiative to bring together representatives of autonomous district councils and state government along with resource persons to deliberate on the challenges of local government financing.
In June, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) pointed out that 10 accounts – two of the KHADC, three of the JHADC and five of the GHADC – are still pending for submission as on December 31, 2021. The GHADC has not submitted accounts from 2016-17 to 2020-21, the JHADC from 2018-19 to 2020-21 and the KHADC from 2019-20 to 2020-21.
Following the CAG’s observations, the KHADC decided to appoint an experienced chartered accountant who will also function as inquiry officer and guide the accounting staff and heads of department on how to properly maintain their accounts, receipts, cash books, etc and report to the KHADC executive committee on his/her findings.
Rymbui attended today’s event as chief guest, with KHADC Chief Executive Member Titosstarwell Chyne the guest of honour.
Speaking on the occasion, Rymbui highlighted the importance of accounting in this new age and stated that it is vital for all the autonomous district councils in the state to be highly dynamic in accounting without missing the proper mechanism with the changing policies and financial rules of the government. In this era of technology, new methods of accounting are being streamlined into the system in which the accounting wing of the respective ADC needs to update and upscale themselves to improve the accounting and auditing framework of the councils, he added.
The objectives of today’s programme were to orient the representatives of the three ADCs, state government officials and representatives of local bodies of the state on measures undertaken by rural bodies in the country to strengthen their finances as well as reforms in the accounting and auditing process and to also discuss the financial health and challenges of the ADCs and measures which are needed to improve the financial transparency and accountability of the councils.
