By Our Political Analyst  Rampant corruption, greed for commission among the ministers and their wives, party leaders and others and political protection to the corrupt ones have been the biggest ills of Nepal’s political and economic sectors. Everyone, be they in power or in business, amassing wealth has been their single goal, and they resort to many lawful and unlawful tactics to become rich overnight. When the corrupt politicians and employees are already there to thin the national coffers, federal structure is also there to fuel the government expenditure as well as other malpractices. The Office of the Auditor General (OAG) in its annual report has painted a grim picture of fiscal indiscipline and lack of accountability in the country. The status of fiscal accountability is disappointing while the internal control system, adherence to fiscal procedures and implementation of the audit report are too weak in maintaining good governance, the OAG said in its 59th annual report made public last week. Repetition of financial misappropriations of the same nature has become the feature of fiscal management in the country, and weak fiscal discipline has hampered the reform in fiscal administration. The report submitted to President Bidya Devi Bhandari by Auditor General Tankamani Sharma Dangal shows that the total arrears have gone up by 15.46 per cent in the Fiscal Year 2020/21 against the previous year 2019/20. After auditing 5,665 agencies, the OAC found total arrears of Rs. 115.05 billion last year while only Rs. 4.21 billion was recovered that year. But total arrears by the end of the last fiscal have reached Rs. 483.6 billion. Likewise, Rs. 345.56 billion needs to be cleared by updating the details of transactions and payments. The two combined make Rs. 829.16 billion to be cleared and recovered. This whopping amount whose expenditure details are not known shows a bizarre picture of corruption in government offices. Government committees and other organisations have performed the worst in terms of fiscal discipline. They have 6.89 per cent arrears of the total audited amount of Rs. 206.12 billion. Among the various levels of government, local governments have the highest percentage of arrears. Of the audited Rs. 1051.1 billion of the local governments, about Rs. 43.91 billion in arrears which is 4.19 per cent. Similarly, provincial governments combined have Rs. 7.48 billion in arrears which are 2.5 per cent of the audited amount Rs. 299.57. However, the federal government has arrears of Rs. 49.47 billion, the highest in terms of amount. The federal arrears amount 1.75 per cent of the audited amount Rs. 2820.38 billion. Among the federal ministries, the Ministry of Communication and Information has the highest per cent of arrears with 25.18 per cent of Rs. 15.38 billion, followed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development which has 15.53 per cent arrears of Rs. 22.08 billion. Other agencies having high arrears include the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies with 12.71 per cent, Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport with 4.61 per cent, Ministry of Education, Science and Technology 4.25 per cent, Ministry of Land Management, Cooperatives and Poverty Alleviation 3.96 per cent, and Ministry of Health and Population 3.35 per cent, informed the OAG. In the report, the OAG noted that there was a lack of harmony between planning, programmes and annual government budget, poor budget discipline while transferring the budget at the end of the year, and poor utilisation of foreign aid. If immediate measures are not taken to correct them, the economy of the nation can collapse at any time. But the correction in the present political set-up looks impossible.