Most sports associations do not maintain proper financial records: Audit

Auditor General's Office has said that most sports associations do not maintain proper records of financial transactions.

In an audit report conducted on the expenses of the Sports Ministry from 2018 to 2023, the office said that in 2018, over MVR 36 million was issued to sports associations from the State budget.

However, the Sports Ministry did not monitor how these funds were used by the associations, the report said.

It further said that there is no evidence if the Sports Ministry had informed the associations of procedures to follow in spending funds issued from the State budget.

The report went on to say that the associations had not properly maintained some records of how these funds were utilized. Some associations also failed to provide documentation regarding expenses despite multiple requests from the Audit Office, it said.

The report said that this is because the associations had failed to maintain proper records of expenses, and because the Ministry had not sufficiently monitored associations' spending of the funds.

The Auditor General's Office called on the Sports Ministry to instruct associations to include details of individual expenses in documentation regarding program budgets. They further called on the ministry to outline measures that will be taken against associations that fail to do so.