Finance secy to probe treasury fraud in Thiruvananthapuram

The probe will cover accounts handled by accused in his previous postings.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The government has asked additional chief secretary (Finance) Rajesh Kumar Singh to launch a probe into the fraud at the Vanchiyoor additional sub-treasury. Finance Minister T M Thomas Isaac who announced the government’s decision said strict action will be taken against the accused.

The Vanchiyoor police have registered a forgery case against senior accountant Biju Lal for allegedly siphoning off `2 crore from the district collector’s account. He was suspended on Saturday.

The three serious issues

The minister said the fraud raised three serious issues; one, the accused used the ID and password of a retired treasury officer to approve the transaction. “The rule is to deactivate the user ID and password of staffers when they retire. Action will be taken against those responsible for this lapse. Also, it will be checked whether more such IDs are active,” he said.

The second aspect of the fraud, Isaac said, was that the accused canceled the transaction after transferring the amount to his personal account. “An amount of `2 crore demitted from the collector’s account was reinstated. But there is no decrease in the amount in the account of the accused. The numbers don’t match and the day book cannot be closed in such a case. Why did it take two days to detect the fraud that occurred on July 27?,” he asked.

The third issue is to find whether there are loopholes in the software.The security audit of the treasury software was conducted by the Standardisation Testing and Quality Certification under the Centre. The functional audit was jointly conducted by the NIC and the treasury’s IT wing.Isaac said the probe will also cover the accounts handled by the suspended employee in his previous postings.The police said the accused is absconding and a probe has begun to trace him.

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