Govt decides to audit ‘Ten Billion Tree Tsunami’ project

ISLAMABAD: The government has decided to conduct a special audit of the Ten Billion Tree Tsunami Programme (TBTTP) for the last three years from the fiscal year 2019-20, 2020-21, and 2021-22 in order to ascertain alleged irregularities or embezzlement of funds.

The Ministry of Climate Change has written an official letter to the Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) for conducting special audit of Ten Billion Tsunami projects on which billions of rupees were utilised for plantation of 10 billion trees all over the country during the tenure of PTI-led government.

The official letter, written by the Ministry of Climate Change to AGP, stated that the Ten Billion Tree Tsunami Programme (TBTTP) is the flagship programme of the Government of Pakistan and is being implemented in all the provinces, including GB and AJK, through the respective Forest and Wildlife departments.

The Ministry of Climate Change is supervising/coordinating the programme activities through a Project Management Unit termed the National Strategic Support Unit (NSSU). The NSSU of TBTTP is also responsible for the monitoring of project activities, being implemented by the provincial/territorial forest and wildlife departments. To ensure transparency of the programme and value for money, it is imperative to conduct financial audit of the Programme Office, which has not been conducted so far.

As the programme is likely to be completed in 2023, it is, therefore, requested that a special audit of NSSU-TBTTP may kindly be conducted for financial years 2019-20, 2020-21 & 2021-22 and the report may be shared with this office, accordingly.

Now the AGP will constitute a special audit team to conduct special audit of the last three years for scrutinising billions of rupees funds utilised on this flagship project by the PTI led government.