New AGP firm to root out corrupt mafia in his organisation

ISLAMABAD: Auditor General for Pakistan (AGP) Rana Assad Amin said that he would cleanse his organisation of corrupt mafia and make appointments purely on merit.
“Since taking over, I have removed a few ‘corrupt officials’ from top positions while more such action is on cards in days ahead. I will run this organisation on professional lines,” the newly sworn in AGP, Rana Assad Amin said in an exclusive chat with The News here in his office on Tuesday.
He has also proposed to Finance Minister Ishaq Dar to halt process of separating audit and accounts groups that had resulted in creating panic within this group because it could result into changing seniority of many officers.
“Now Finance Minister has agreed to my proposal in principle so now Pakistan Audit and Accounts Service (PAAS) group will remain united for time being,” he added.He also said that he would work in close liaison with Public Accounts Committee (PAC) headed by Opposition Leader Khurshid Shah and would make efforts to overcome pendency in finalising audit reports till end of next year 2016.
When asked about his priority areas, he said: “My first priority is to remove corrupt mafia from the AGPR and bring in those who enjoy good reputation and integrity,” he added.He said that in the recent past audit officers were used to conduct transaction-based audit only and raised a lengthy list of audit paras. “Now we want to shift transaction-based audit to internal auditors of the ministries/divisions and the AGPR will review the work done by them alone,” he maintained. If our auditors found any violation then they would raise the same in their reports, he added.
The audit officers, he said, would be assigned to undertake special audits of any wrongdoing going on in ministries/division or attached departments and would inform the government accordingly to save billions of rupees from going waste.
“Instead of giving long list of audit paras, the audit report will be restricted to only 50 to 60 paras related to main points,” he said and added that the work done by audit group would help NAB and FIA in their investigations.
He said that the audit officers would be equipped with Informational Technology (IT) training because without having IT training they were unable to undertake effective audit of organisations equipped with latest technology.
“We will focus on conducting environmental audit to bring in latest techniques in our area,” he said and added that instead of finding out minor issues the AGPR would raise relevant issues that would promote quality and could save precious wealth of national exchequer.
Regarding audit reports, he said that his predecessor had signed audit reports and sent to competent authority. He said that he would ensure overcoming some portion of pendency on account of audit reports by December 2015 while the AGPR would become current till end of next year.