An audit of Sindh’s Irrigation Department has raised serious questions about how billions of rupees of public money were spent in the last financial year, after auditors found irregularities and breaches of procedure totalling Rs23.95 billion in 2024-25. The findings, set out in a 54-point report, touch on contract awards, purchases, and the way bills were processed and paid. The report has now been sent to the province’s irrigation secretary for further action.
The report was prepared by the Auditor General of Pakistan, the constitutional office that examines how federal and provincial governments spend public funds. Its auditors examined money meant for running Sindh’s irrigation network and carrying out development schemes, and concluded that much of it did not follow the rules laid down for it. The scale of the figure alone has made the report difficult to ignore, because irrigation is one of the largest responsibilities of the Sindh government, touching farming, rural livelihoods, drainage, and protection against floods.
One recurring problem was the way contracts were handled. Auditors flagged what they described as the unlawful division of contracts, in which a larger piece of work is broken into smaller parts. That matters because the size of a contract usually determines how it must be advertised, who may bid, and what level of approval is required. When those thresholds are avoided, competition can be narrowed and oversight weakened, even if the work is eventually carried out. The report also questioned payments made contrary to approved rules, and lapses in the processing and clearance of bills.
A further concern related to the approval and execution of development projects. Auditors found that mandatory procedures were allegedly bypassed, and that some spending was justified as emergency work. Emergency procedures exist for good reason: when a canal breaches or a flood embankment is under threat, a lengthy tender process could put lives and crops at risk. But that flexibility creates a temptation, because an emergency label can sidestep competition and scrutiny. The audit has therefore asked whether the urgency claimed in each case was genuine, whether the spending was lawful, and whether the public purse suffered losses.
Procurement was another area of concern. The report pointed to tenders that auditors considered illegal and to purchases made in violation of prescribed regulations. Public procurement rules are meant to ensure that the government buys what it needs at a fair price, from a supplier chosen through open competition, with a clear record of why that supplier was selected. When those rules are not followed, the risk is not only wasted money, but damaged public confidence in a system farmers cannot easily check for themselves.
One specific item involved spending running into millions of rupees on filling breaches in flood embankments. Embankments, or bunds, are among the most sensitive pieces of infrastructure in Sindh, because a failure during high flows on the Indus can inundate whole districts. Money spent repairing them is rarely questioned in principle. What auditors questioned was the documentation: the department, they said, failed to provide satisfactory legal or documentary justification for the spending, leaving auditors unable to verify that the work was properly authorised, measured, and paid for. That absence of a satisfactory record is itself a serious finding.
The department’s importance makes the findings especially sensitive. It operates and maintains the irrigation and flood protection system, regulates flows of the Indus and its canals, and manages surface drainage, tube wells, and flood control along the river and hill torrents. Water reaches Sindh’s fields through fourteen canal systems fed by three barrages on the Indus at Guddu, Sukkur and Kotri. Every rupee lost to poor procedure is one that cannot be spent on desilting a canal, strengthening a bund, or improving drainage.
The audit process is meant to provide a check of exactly this kind. The Auditor General’s reports are laid before the provincial assembly and examined by the Public Accounts Committee, which can question officials, seek explanations, and recommend recovery or disciplinary action where public money was misspent. Departments are normally given a chance to respond to each observation, and some objections are settled when a satisfactory explanation is produced. Here, auditors have recommended a transparent investigation and legal action against any officials found responsible, a recommendation that will test whether accountability works in practice or merely on paper.
For the irrigation secretary, the immediate task is to answer each of the 54 points, produce whatever records exist, and explain where procedures were followed and where they were not. That response will determine whether any of the Rs23.95 billion can be regularised, recovered, or written off with proper authority. For farmers, the outcome is not abstract: their livelihoods depend on water arriving at the right time and on embankments holding when river flows rise. An audit objection is not a court verdict, and it does not by itself prove dishonesty by any individual. What it establishes is that, in the auditors’ judgement, a very large sum was spent in ways that broke or bypassed the rules, and the department has not yet provided answers that satisfy them.
