This paper deals with the role of CAG in promoting good governance. The CAG is entrusted to perform the following two-fold constitutional functions:

- Article 128 (1) prescribes: "The Public Accounts of the Republic and of all courts of law and all authorities and officers of the Government shall be audited and reported on by the Auditor-General ..........". The Audit Reports so prepared on the basis of the above mentioned provision are submitted to the President to be laid before the Jatiyo Sangsad or Parliament.

- Article 132 prescribes: "The reports of the Auditor-General relating to the public accounts of the Republic shall be submitted to the President who shall cause them to be laid before Parliament". The public accounts include the Finance Accounts and the Appropriation Accounts which are audited and certified by the Auditor-General for submission to the President to be tabled in the Parliament.

-Sources of CAG's mandate:

- The constitution of the Republic, Articles 127-132

- The Comptroller & Auditor General (Addl. Functions) Act, 1974

- The Comptroller & Auditor General (Addl. Functions) Act, 1975

- The Comptroller & Auditor General (Addl. Functions) (Amendment) Ordinance, 1983

- Audit Code

- Legislative acts as and when enacted by the Parliament

-Historical weaknesses of CAG's audit:

- Traditional, transactional and compliance audit resulting in huge accumulation of audit objections not addressing the core issues

- Age-old audit methodologies not suited to the present requirements

- Conservative attitude of the auditors adhering to out-lived auditing notion

- Lack of skill and expertise of the auditors

- Insufficient auditor-auditee relationship

- Inadequate Parliament-Audit relationship

- Poor linkage with the private sector auditors and other professional bodies

- Backlog in the audit report submission

- Poor quality of audit-reports

-To address the situation, concrete and cohesive measures have been taken to mitigate the above mentioned weaknesses, to make audit productive and meaningful. A Strategic Plan (2003-2006) consisting of short, mid, long and tenure targets has been made operational. The gains so far achieved are stated below :

- Audit Report format has been re-structured into: Volume-1 consisting of an Executive Summary of the whole report in 5 pages; Volume-2 consisting of each audit para in one page (25 sentences) only; Volume-3 consisting of Appendix with all the supporting documents resulting that an Audit Report with 100 audit paras having 1000 pages in the past is presently being compiled in 150 pages in 3 volumes making it easily comprehensible, reader friendly and effective

- Issue based audit on matters of national importance has been started

- Performance audit on important organisations has been commenced on selective basis

- Special audit on the requisition of the parliamentary committees, ministries and other stake holders is being carried out

- Pre-emptive audit to prevent serious financial irregularities in the running financial year has been introduced

- IT Audit is being planned

- Arrears in audit report submission have been pulled up and audit reports of 2002-2003 are awaiting submission to the parliament through the Hon'ble President

- In order to upgrade the audit methodologies, new out-lines on audit briefing, audit execution, audit report writing and audit inspection have been issued by CAG office to supplement the existing provisions of the Audit Manuals and Auditing Standards

- Quality Assurance Team (QAT) at each Audit Directorate and Central Quality Assurance Team (CQAT) at CAG office have been set-up to improve upon the quality of the audit reports

- Formerly promotee officers and audit staff by and large used to carry out audit. Now it has been made mandatory for the BCS (Audit and Accounts) cadre officers and DGs/Directors/Dy. Directors of the audit directorates to do audit having positive impact upon the quality of the audit reports

- CAG's Central Inspection Teams (CIT) inspect the audit parties throughout the country all through the year and CAG takes necessary measures on the basis of those reports

- An 'Audit Forum' consisting of all the DGs of audit directorates has been formed as a 'Think Tank' to recommend ways and means to CAG to improve the standard of auditing

- In-house training in the CAG office and all the audit directorates has been made in-built.

- Course syllabuses and training modules of CAG controlled Financial Management Academy (FIMA) have been revised and made more realistic and job oriented

- A crash programme has been commenced to settle pending audit objections through tripartite meeting among the audited organisation, its controlling Ministry and the Audit Directorate. Recently under such a programme on the positive initiative of the Finance Ministry and CAG office, 68 percent of the arrear audit paras in the nationalised bank sector and other government controlled financial institutions has been resolved.

- CAG's re-structuring proposal to strengthen the administrative and operational efficiency of CAG office is under active consideration of the government

- An Internal Control survey on CAG office and all its subordinate offices have been carried out and corrective measures to overcome the management weaknesses of CAG office and audit directorates have been taken

- Internal Audit Manual is being prepared that will greatly enhance the management efficiency of the public sector organisations

- Transparency and accountability are being assured through numerous publications on regular basis

- Under the Reforms Agenda on CAG office, Financial Management Reforms Programme (FMRP) project component-1 and component-5 (2003-2008) under the management of the Finance Ministry is working in full swing. Funded jointly by DFID-Royal Netherlands Government and GoB, the project aims at improving the auditing capability of the CAG office and enhancing human resource development of the audit manpower through upgrading the training capacity of FIMA.

- CAG's audit reports are mainly used by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the Jatiyo Sangsad where threadbare discussions on the audit paras are held in the presence of CAG and the Secretary concerned who is also the Principal Accounting Officer (PAO) of his Ministry or Division. PAC is the sole arbiter in recommending the final settlement of audit paras to the Parliament. The Committee after its formation in the present Sangsad has been very active and strenuous in resolving audit paras.

- Promoting good governance is a collective responsibility. As one of the important partners of this collaborative effort, CAG office is fully aware of the gravity of the constitutional obligations and is determined to fulfil the same. CAG's core values are ingrained in the motto 'PROACTIVE' e.g., Professionalism, Reliability, Objectivity, Accountability, Credibility, Trust-worthiness, Integrity, Viability and Ethics which will consolidate and further the cause of promoting good governance.

Asif Ali is Comptroller and Auditor General of Bangladesh