Auditing reforms save government multibillion rupees

ISLAMABAD: New public sector’s auditing measures have helped the government save billions of rupees through rectifying the loopholes identified by Auditor General of Pakistan, a top official said on Monday.

Auditor General of Pakistan Rana Assad, talking to a delegation of Turkish Court of Accounts (TCA), said the new audit approach has been initiated in all field audit offices by allocating at least 30 percent of their resources for special audit activity. 

“…For every rupee spent on audit, Rs21 were recovered by ministries/divisions on the basis of observations raised by audit,” Assad said in a statement.

“Total recovery for the year 2015-16 was Rs81 billion as compared to Rs40 billion during 2014-15, showing an increase of 100 percent in recoveries over the previous year.”

He said the department of Auditor General of Pakistan started negotiations with a number of supreme audit institutions (SAIs) of various countries to mutually benefit from each other’s experiences. 

“Department of the Auditor General of Pakistan (DAGP) signed MoU (memorandum of understanding) with Turkish Court of Accounts in October 2016 that pertains to cooperation on public sector auditing and provides an excellent opportunity for bilateral cooperation between the two brotherly SAIs,” he added.

DAGP is playing ‘very active’ role in various committees and working groups of the international organisation of supreme audit institutions, Asian Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions and Economic Cooperation Organization Supreme Audit Institutions. 

The Auditor General of Pakistan said the department is presently engaged in promoting audit reforms based on Strategic Plan (2015-19), primarily implemented through recommendations of the audit reforms committee.

Fikret Coker, deputy president of TCA said SAIs of both the countries may benefit from study visit of senior and middle level management and may also explore areas of mutual cooperation for capacity building and training of officers under the MoU. 

“There is also need to identify areas where SAI Pakistan can offer trainings to SAI Turkey,” Coker said. “SAI Turkey looks forward to working with SAI Pakistan to strengthen and promote cooperation and benefit from mutual experiences and knowledge.”

Meanwhile, finance minister Ishaq Dar, talking to deputy president of TCA, said like Turkey, the Constitution of Pakistan provides for the mechanism of AGP, which functions independently and has the mandate to ensure transparency in all financial matters in the country. 

“Pakistan welcomes close collaboration between TCA and AGP that could help modernise audit practices in both countries, thereby bringing improvement in overall governance with particular emphasis on transparency in financial matters,” Dar said.