"This is unfortunate that there is no provision for the audit objections to be discussed in parliament and the CAG cannot take actions against the audit objections," said State Minister for Energy and Mineral Resources AKM Mosharraf Hossain at a seminar Monday.

"There is no good just preparing an audit report without taking necessary actions against the objections. The audit objections are hardly settled and remain pending for years. It reduces accountability of the government offices," he told the seminar, organised by Institution of Chartered Accoun-tants of Bangladesh (ICAB).

If the audit reports are discussed in detail in parliament and objections are settled, it will help reduce corruption in public offices, the minister said.

The CAG auditing report also lacks performance evaluation and result-orientation, Mosharraf observed.

"But I don't blame the CAG office for that. The whole system of public auditing needs to be reviewed and the office further empowered. The government should take expertise from private sector if need be," he said.

The minister suggested that the government, especially CAG office, should forge a public-private partnership and share experience to improve quality of auditing.

Addressing the seminar, Shahad Chowdhury, director general (Works Audit), CAG office Dhaka, said the CAG office is now manned with skilled professionals and equipped with technology and it is doing pre-emptive auditing in some government offices.

ICAB President Akhtar Sohel Kasem said the CAG office should outsource some public auditing jobs to private audit firms to improve quality and bring in more transparency.

Anwaruddin Chowdhury, former president of ICAB, and Md Abu Sayed Khan, member council-ICAB, presented a paper on "Public Private Partnership in Public Sector Auditing" at the seminar held in ICAB auditorium.