The National Audit Office has uncovered a troubling case of missing media equipment from the Presidential Media Division, with items worth Rs. 14.2 million unaccounted for. A significant amount of media equipment, including cameras and laptops, purchased for the division’s operations between 2015 and 2020, has disappeared, raising serious concerns about inventory management and accountability within the Presidential Secretariat.
According to the audit report, a total of 3,406 items, including essential media equipment such as cameras and laptops, were purchased during this period but have not been returned to the division. The total value of the equipment issued through the Presidential Secretariat’s warehouse management system from 2014 to January 2020 amounts to Rs. 162,273,185. The distribution of these items was as follows: 4 items in 2014, 558 in 2015, 660 in 2016, 602 in 2017, 1,262 in 2018, 313 in 2019, and 7 items in 2020.
The audit, dated February 22, 2021, notes that only three recipe books related to the Presidential Media Division were submitted for audit, but these missing items were not listed in the books. A physical inspection, conducted with a technical officer, revealed that 133 units of equipment, valued at Rs. 21.9 million, were absent from the division’s inventory. The engineers from the Presidential Media Division estimated the value of the missing items to be closer to Rs. 35 million, raising further questions about the true scale of the loss.
The audit also discovered that there were no records of the equipment purchased from 2015 to 2019, as per the letter PMD/ENG/VIDEO/21/02/II dated February 10, 2021. This equipment was not included in the annual inventory surveys, suggesting a significant lapse in proper documentation and tracking.
Additional reports revealed that certain individuals were specifically linked to the missing items. For instance, 21 items purchased by a single person were not returned, and three other items, including two high-value cameras worth Rs. 2.5 million each, were issued to another individual, but these too were unaccounted for.
The findings have raised concerns over the management and oversight of public resources within the Presidential Media Division, and further investigations are likely to follow to determine accountability and prevent future discrepancies.
