PMO, Delhi CM pulled up over CWG mess

Multiplicity of co-ordination committees, inefficient decision-making structures within the Organising Committee (OC) and allocation of contracts in an “ad hoc and arbitrary” manner, led to serious financial irregularities and defalcation of public funds during the Delhi Commonwealth Games, according to the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) audit report on the event held last year. The report was tabled on Friday in both houses of Parliament.

“The modus operandi observed over the entire gamut of activities leading to the conduct of the Games was inexplicable delays in decision making, which put pressure on timelines and thereby led to the creation of an artificial or consciously created sense of urgency,” the report says.

The 750-page colour report, illustrated with photographs to contrast the shape of venues before and after the Games, raises pertinent questions over the role of the prime minister's office (PMO) in appointing Suresh Kalmadi as the chairman of the executive board of the CWG Organising Committee.

“In our opinion, the decision of the PMO for appointing Kalmadi as the chairman of the OC facilitated the conversion of the originally envisaged government-owned OC into a body effectively outside governmental control,” the report says.

“The OC thus functioned, in effect, as a parallel, non-governmental organisation, without commensurate accountability to the government and concomitant controls to ensure propriety and transparency (despite full financial guarantee and funding from the government),” the report adds.

However, unlike as in the report on the 2G spectrum, the CAG has refrained from putting an overall loss figure to the exchequer. “We do not know the total expenditure that occurred during the Games. Therefore, we cannot compute what the total loss has been,” Deputy CAG Rekha Gupta told reporters here.

The report also criticised the role of Kalmadi in awarding the Games village catering contract, terming it “flawed”. “We have found irregularities in the award of the Games Village catering contract… and a questionable decision by the OC chairman.” Further, it says it has found “clear and repeated interventions at different stages to steer the timing, scoring and results system contract towards Swiss Timing Omega at exorbitant prices.”

The audit agency has also criticised the government for not responding to the repeated concerns raised by former sports secretary S K Arora and sports minister Mani Shankar Aiyar over the “sports ministry's ineffective position in exercising control over the OC to the PMO and GoM in 2007”.