Personal Experience
November 15, 2016: I reported to Yangchenphug Higher Secondary School (YHSS) as a Visiting Examiner for the Class 12 Physics practical board examination. My official duty lasted 3 days. On the first day, I assessed 123 physics project entries. The practical examinations were conducted over the following 2 days.
To prevent the leakage of examination questions, schools across the country were required to begin and end practical examinations on the same dates. Due to the unusually large student population at YHSS, the first group of candidates began their examination at 5:30 AM on a cold winter morning. This early start was necessary to ensure uniform completion with other schools. The first day concluded at around 7:30 PM, and I do not clearly recall the time I returned home.
Although the modalities of administering the practical exams seems to have been revised recently, at the time I served as visiting examiner, all Class 12 science students were examined using the same set of practical questions. This means, students who completed the examination early were required to remain confined in a designated room until all others had finished. We were tasked with supervising them cautiously and even required to escort students to the restroom to prevent any communication that could result in the disclosure of examination questions.
After completing the invigilation duty, I claimed my Travel and Daily Allowances (TADA) for 5 days. This included three days of examination duty, one day for travel to the examination centre, and one day for the return journey. This claim followed the standard practice applied to other civil servants performing any official duties.
Two months later, I was informed that I had claimed an excess amount of Nu. 500. According to the BCSEA, revised financial regulations entitled an examiner to only a half-day allowance for return travel if the distance to the working station was less than 70 kilometres. I was instructed to refund Nu. 500 from the entitled daily allowance of Nu. 1000. BCSEA’s order also implied that the officially recognised distance between Wangdue (my workplace) and Thimphu (the examination centre) which is officially 70 kilometres, had been retrospectively shortened.
A list of individuals accused of similar overclaims was forwarded to the respective District Education Office. My name was publicly announced by the school administration on the school WeChat platform. At the same time, unverified warnings circulated that administrative action might follow if the amount was not refunded promptly.
I did not respond immediately. In my 12 years of service, I had never been associated with any allegation of financial misconduct. But this time, being asked to refund the entitled amount left me unsettled. I revisited the official distance between Wangdue and Thimphu. It was clearly recorded as 70 kilometres.
Nevertheless, I refunded the amount on the same day. I chose not to contest the issue. Public accusations, even when financially insignificant, have always affected me deeply. Experiences of being wrongly blamed in the past have left lasting psychological impressions.
Above all, when matters involve public funds, I believe citizens have a moral obligation to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. Even though I was convinced that I had not claimed more than what I was legally entitled to, I reimbursed Nu. 500 as instructed. This personal incident, though modest in scale, sharpened my awareness of how financial irregularities are interpreted, pursued, and publicised.
It is from this experience, combined with repeated reports of far more serious financial irregularities, that I turn to examine the findings of the Royal Audit Authority and the broader culture of financial accountability in our public institutions.
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What are Financial Irregularities (FI)?
Whether we realise it or not, we hear about financial irregularities regularly through mainstream media and the annual reports of the Royal Audit Authority. Almost every year, the media carries brief accounts of such cases drawn from these reports. As the supreme audit institution of the Kingdom, the Royal Audit Authority publishes its findings annually, almost as a ritualised exercise (annual lochoe) that appears unfailingly in the national calendar.
Surprisingly, these reports rarely provoke sustained public debate or decisive institutional response. Lawmakers, regulators, and responsible agencies, who possess both the authority and the mandate to act, often remain silent or passive. Oversight mechanisms rarely translate audit observations into structural reform or meaningful accountability.
I feel even those self-claimed public figures and social media personalities also contribute to this indifference by choosing silence, despite their influence. However, the deeper concern lies with institutions entrusted with governance and enforcement. As a result, financial irregularities in our context have ceased to be treated as serious breaches. They have instead become a normalised event, routined occurrences, repeated year after year, and accepted as regular irregularities.
Regardless of their definitions, I believe that whether it is embezzlement, fraud, falsifying documents/records, mismanagement of funds/assets, falsification of accounts, or noncompliance with laws and regulations, including acts of corruption such as bribery and bid rigging, all such practices constitute financial irregularities when they involve public or organisational funds and violate legal, regulatory, or ethical standards. In essence, these acts represent different forms of corruption, as they all undermine the lawful, transparent, and responsible use of public resources.
Why does FI occur?
Money is the root of all evil they say. The obsessive desire that individuals have for money is what makes it the source of all evil. More significantly, the fact that money is deployed as a universal tool to do everything in this world only serves to compound the situation by making money the root of all evil.
But what can be done without having money these days? At the international level, money is heavily employed as a means for a nation to dictate and demonstrate dominance, authority, and global super-power. At the government level, politics function only when there is abundant money. At the individual level, we engage with money for absolutely everything.
But do these reasons stated above cause FI? Maybe or may not.
Whenever I hear of FI, the following things spring into my mind:
Human Greed
Humans have unquenchable desires and longings. With such greed, we have that tendency not to think twice about engaging in criminal activity and breaking the law to get filthy rich and have it all for ourselves, even at the expense of the national coffer.
Opportunity to Access
Wetake advantage of the opportunity to do anything when they have access to public funds. They can fiddle with the calculations, bribe someone, embezzle money, or engage in corrupt practices.
Inefficient System
The fact that we always hear about FI signals the ineffectiveness of our check and balance system. It is not surprising that we frequently witness the same individuals and institutions indulging in FI because of the fragile system. These people are already informed of the system’s vulnerabilities, which are neither remedied nor considered to be addressed despite frequent FI incidents.
Toothless Laws?
We often lack robust legal action against FI culprits. Most of the time, perpetrators are given administrative action as punitive sanctions. Administrative action means transferring the wrongdoers to a new place (so-called remote posting). New places are locations with all the contemporary amenities in place. Because they receive the same monthly income with less work and responsibility, lawbreakers who are relocated to remote areas are often contented, comfortable and convenient.
Who is involved in FI?
Nobody needs a subtitle to decipher this question. Based on the evidence of mainstream media reports, FI is connected to those in positions of authority, have access to public funds, and deal with money at work.
Why is FI a Big Concern for Bhutan?
Although we emphasise on Gross National Happiness (GNH) over Gross Domestic Product (GDP), GDP is still an important constituent of GNH. Our economy is still at an embryonic stage, which requires abundant efforts to keep it emerging and evolving. When there is FI, our emerging economy will be corrupted and will be diseased to function efficiently.
We are a donor-recipient nation where most of the developmental activities are completed through bilateral aid or loaned capital. We should not be complacent to witness this gamble of financial illegitimacy contaminate and hurt our delicate economy.
At the societal level, the recurrent incidences of FI will deteriorate the noble foundations of harmony, and tha-damtsig (commitment/trust to the relationship). If FI is not nibbed in the bud, it risks the potential in creating an unequal and illegal wealth distribution, causing disharmony and distrust in society. That’s where we will keep seeing more people having plenty of money to support three to four generations of their families, while others even lack a basic roof to keep them safe from the heat and cold. That’s how the bridge between haves and have-nots will only get widened.
Curbing FI
I am not an economist or financial expert. But I certainly feel that for a very small nation like ours, we can fix everything. Although FI cannot be eliminated, there are mechanisms to mitigate it.
Annually RMA publishes the findings regarding the FI. It is now time that they remedy the identified vulnerabilities in our system. When regular FI are reported annually like an Olympics event, at times, we can only sense that we are already in auto-pilot mode. FI has been the elephant in the room. Some people and organisations have already earned a permanent seat in this financial Olympic event due to their ritualistic engagement.
Curbing FI is a collective responsibility. It is time to hold people accountable if they are engaged in any FI-related practices. It is time to introduce zero tolerance into action. It is time to revamp our system and make it more robust, transparent, and dynamic.
At the individual level, it is time that we school our attitude. For instance, I reimbursed the money despite being aware that I had not claimed any more money than what was legally entitled. I refunded the cash immediately, even though I understood the cashier was to blame in the first place. I am mindful that working with ethics, professionalism, high morals, and integrity are key ingredients to any human behaviour.
