Thiruvananthapuram: Four employees of the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation have been suspended over allegations of financial fraud to the tune of Rs 33.96 lakh.
The Kerala State Audit Department's concurrent audit found that money received as taxes was misappropriated by the employees of the Nemom, Sreekaryam, Ulloor, and Attipra zonal offices of the corporation.
S Shanthi and S Sunitha, the superintendent and cashier at the Nemom office, were suspended on Wednesday for embezzling Rs. 26,74,333.
The fraud was first detected at the Sreekaryam office, where an initial enquiry had spotted a deficit of Rs. 1.74 lakh. A further examination revealed that Rs. 5.40 lakh was missing. Office Attendant Biju and Bill Collector Anil were suspended in this case.
Less than Rs. 2 lakhs each were found missing from the other two branches. A detailed examination of the accounts at Ulloor and Attipra is ongoing.
Fraud committed using bank seal
The accused reportedly used two challans instead of one while depositing the daily collection at the bank. As the challans had the bank's seal on them, it wasn't easily noticed.
The decision to suspend the accused was taken after the Local Self-Government Department sought an explanation from the Corporation secretary over the missing funds.
Special system to be set up
Corporation Mayor Arya Rajendran said that a special system will be set up to check the funds at zonal offices and the main office.
The other day after the misappropriation came to light, the Mayor had quizzed the accounts department that had put the anomaly to a technical error.
The officials in the accounts department had argued that they could not inspect the daily cash flow as the collections from the 11 zonal offices were ported to the main office at an interval of 15-30 days.
