Faulty software forced govt to make book adjustments of Rs 48,000 crore: Andhra FM

The AP finance minister said the state government gave a clarification to CAG about the funds and as this system was earlier managed by a private person but now the government appointed an IAS officer to figure out the loopholes in it.

New Delhi: Andhra Pradesh finance minister Buggana Rajendranath Reddy on Monday refuted TDP's claims and said that the government did not spend Rs 48,000 crore but only made book adjustments because of a faulty financial software introduced by the previous regime in Andhra Pradesh during 2020-21 fiscal year.

Addressing the media, Reddy said, "the current YSRCP government could not make entries of 600-odd bills for an amount of about Rs 48,000 crore due to programming errors in the Comprehensive Finance Management System (CFMS)." CFMS, he said, was not systematically organised "which is why book adjustment transactions are shown under special bills". The CFMS was introduced in 2018, when the TDP was in power, to ensure accountability on all payments and track the flow of funds in government departments.

"There were errors in the CFMS as the previous government introduced it hurriedly in 2018 with a private person as CFO. Since there were no options in the software to enter certain heads, we made only book adjustments. There was no fraud and no cash transaction took place," Reddy said. Asked why his government took such a long time to identify the defects in the CFMS, he said, "Earlier, the CFMS was managed by a private person. Our government appointed an IAS officer and took the time to figure out the loopholes in the system. When you are driving on a new road, you won't know where the speed breakers would be."

"As soon as the faults were identified, the government began to rectify them, and "more than 80 per cent of errors have been fixed now", Reddy said. Asked if the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) was informed about the faulty software, the finance minister said, "the government gave clarifications to all the objections raised by it and there may have been "some delay" by the time the CAG reported on accounts was finalised."

The state finance secretary has written an explanatory letter to the CAG in this regard, he added. The CAG report on the accounts was presented to the legislature on March 25. Reddy said when the TDP was in power, it had also made a book adjustment transaction towards the end of the financial year 2018-19. Last week, the TDP had asked the Centre to invoke Article 360 of the Constitution and clamp financial emergency in Andhra Pradesh to protect it from the alleged gross mismanagement by the YS Jagan Mohan Reddy regime.