More than Rs. 351 billion allocated last year to the Ministry of Education, Higher Education and Vocational Education has gone unspent, the National Audit Office has revealed in its latest report.
The report shows that 32% of capital allocations amounting to Rs. 163.8 billion and 15% of recurrent allocations amounting to Rs. 187.8 billion were left unused in 2024.
Auditors noted that funds had been requested without proper forecasting or a sound rationale, leading to wasteful estimates.
As a result, allocations under 36 expenditure heads, totalling Rs. 37.4 billion, were left untouched. Of these, 32 were capital expenditure items.
The findings raise serious questions over financial planning within the ministry, which continues to command one of the largest budgetary allocations annually, ministry sources said.
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