Auditors gone awry
WE have stopped being surprised by news of misdeeds and misdemeanors of government institutions and statutory bodies. Another specimen of the level to which a statutory body has sunk was exposed to us by the TIB on Thursday. Office of the Comptroller & Auditor General (OCAG), the highest public watchdog to watch over how public money is spent, by detecting irregularities and ensuring financial discipline of all public spending, is itself mired in all sorts of corruption and irregularities, according to the said TIB report
The TIB must be commended for the survey, and, even more, we must commend the Comptroller and Auditor General himself, with whom the report of the survey was shared, and he, unlike many heads of public directorates or government agencies, did not rubbish the report but instead wanted it to be made public. And this is what gives us the hope that there is an intention to take necessary corrective actions to repair the situation, both structural and discipline.
The TIB has made some valid recommendations that should be given due consideration, in order to make the OCAG more efficient and functional. Its manpower must be increased to allow it to survey much more than the only 10 percent of the offices and projects that it is able to do now. It must also be made truly independent, which it is apparently not, since it has to share the audit report with the PMO's office, that being one of the thousands that the OCAG audits annually.
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