New Delhi: The man who will lead a massive audit of the Commonwealth Games has set an ambitious deadline. In three months, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) says, his team will present its findings on the Games to the government.
The Games were suffused with an array of corruption charges. Now, 24 government departments - 14 of them belonging to the Delhi government - will have to explain why so much money was spent, and what it was spent on.
CAG Vinod Rai said the audit has three goals -to establish "the physical outcome of expenditure, accountability, and whether it has been most optimal utilization of resources."
Every transaction and contract will be scrutinized by a team of 80-100 CAG staffers, who've been asked to immediately cancel any vacation plans.
An interim report of the CAG submitted before the Games began found that consultants picked for sponsorship and broadcast rights deals had been selected despite not offering the best terms to the Organizing Committee.
The consistent allegations of feckless expenditure and corruption that prefaced the Games are also turning into the epilogue. Hours after the Games ended, the Prime Minister's office confirmed that a series of parallel investigations would uncover foreign exchange violations, tax fraud and other financial misdeeds. Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit said that the corruption seemed to be hinged to the Organizing Committee, whose chairman, Suresh Kalmadi retaliated on Sunday that the Delhi government's role was suspect.
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