Recoveries likely to exceed Rs100 bn in current fiscal: AGP

ISLAMABAD: Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) Rana Assad Amin said that the recoveries due to effective audit was expected to exceed Rs100 billion during the current fiscal year as the whole mechanism was streamlined and strengthened to ensure zero tolerance for corruption and wrongdoings.

“Our recoveries out of effective audit since last several years would be touching more than double as it stood at Rs40 billion per annum when he had assumed charge on June 8, 2015 and now it would be exceeding Rs100 billion by June 2017. We have already recovered Rs77 billion till January 15, 2017. All this turnaround has happened by ensuring transparency and meritocracy in the Audit Department at all levels,” the AGP said in an exclusive interview with The News in his office.

He explained that the recoveries increased more than double because the audit system was strengthened and made effective, adding that earlier several cases continued to remain pending but now these recoveries were improved because of disposing of cases of last several years of rolling over period by putting in place right man for the right job.

He said that the recoveries had fetched Rs80 billion during the last financial year and this year they expected to hit the 100 billion marks. He said that they would be accomplishing around 70 special audit reports till June this year as so far 49 were already completed regarding different important topics.

When asked about special audit of ghost pensioners, he said that they had sent out their detailed report to president in which different irregularities were identified but it was blown out of context that 0.6 million were ghost pensioners. 

Dwelling upon various issues related to ensuring transparency in public finances, Rana Assad Amin, who is going to complete his term next month exactly on April 7, 2017, said that when he was appointed at this constitutional post the department was passing through a difficult patch and it was at its lowest ebb and at the brink of total disaster. Since year of 1860 when this department came into being, it was the first time when any AGP Buland Akhtar Rana was removed when Supreme Judicial Council proved 20 charges against him.

From this situation, he said that the Department of the Auditor General of Pakistan (DAGP) was reversed from bottom low to merit based department. First of all, the concept of right man for right job was implemented in letter and spirit and all DGs were appointed on merit. 

The AGP said that the monitoring and implementation wing was strengthened to ensure transparency. He said that no one could dare to request him for “sifarish” as he conveyed to all his officers that if anyone could make effort to influence him it could cause affect to his annual confidential report (ACR) for promotion purposes.

He said that there were posts of Auditors available for each based in UK and USA and Establishment Division was involved for selection of suitable person for this slot on merit.

He said that DAGP was working without having any Human Resource Policy and they were finalising arrangements for training its staff on international standards manuals on audit as around 200 officers would be trained from recognised institutions of the world.

“We have decided to train 100 officers on forensic audit from the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA), UK,” he said and added that now it was an era of specialised audits for banking, IT and environmental sectors. He said that almost 30 percent resources were spent on special audits as performance based and special audits would be increased in days ahead. 

When asked about certain organisations which were not allowing audits despite direction given by the Supreme Court of Pakistan, Rana Assad Amin said that there were total 19 such entities which were now reduced to 14 including DHA, FWO, Joint Venture being established with assistance of other countries and National Bank of Pakistan. On joint ventures (JV), he said that Ministry of Finance was considering various options to go ahead with their audits while NBP had obtained stay orders.

On introduction of technology for doing effective audit, he said that they were trying to procure Audit Management Information System (AMIS) software from World Bank and USAID.  He said that earlier PIFRA’s lending of $10 million was surrendered for developing AMIS software during the tenure of previous AGP. 

He said that they developed Strategic Plan for year 2015-19 by envisaging five major goals which were implemented during his tenure. He said that without having any legal requirement, they established supra body Policy Board comprising 21 representatives from government, NGOs, Institute of Chartered Accountants in Pakistan (ICAP), Institute of Cost & Management Accountants of Pakistan (ICMA), Pakistan Institute of Public Finance Accountants (PIPFA) and our own department to get policy advice on important issues which was another efforts to ensure transparency.