Govt mulls ways to improve auditing process

As bureaucracy continues to defend financial scams, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government is considering a plan to empower ministers concerned to act as the principal accounts officers (CAOs) and forming a committee to suggest parameters relating to audit of the auditor general of Pakistan (AGP).

The AGP had recently unearthed several irregularities worth billions of rupees during audit of various government departments. Sources said that the move was aimed at keeping a check on the bureaucracy as well as the AGP.

The sources said that government had decided to form a committee that would suggest parameters relating to financial audit of the AGP, adding that the parameters might either clipswings of bureaucracy or those of the AGP.

The AGP had unearthed several financial irregularities during the tenure of PTI government. According to the sources, the government was upset at the revelations of those scams. They also said that the issue had been raised in a couple of cabinet meetings.

The PTI government was also upset at the bureaucracy, which had been defending the financial irregularities of the previous government. “Therefore, the PTI government has two tasks at the same time – dealing with federal secretaries on the one hand, and the auditor general, on the other,” said a source.

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“To settle the issue, Prime Minister Imran Khan had held a meeting with the treasury members of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC),” the source said. Alluding to a recent meeting, a cabinet member mentioned the practice by the federal secretaries to defend audit paras, irrespective of the wrongdoing.

“This,” the cabinet member pointed out, “hampered the unearthing of major financial scams of the previous governments”. He suggested that the ministers in charge should also be involved in the process, for firming up the division’s stance at the PAC and departmental accounts committee (DAC).

He pointed out that the federal secretaries also functioned as the PAOs and were responsible for the financial discipline in their divisions. However, since most of the audit paras prepared by the AGP pertained to procedural irregularities, majority of these get settled in departmental accounts committee (DACs) after rectifying procedural shortcoming.

The cases where financial impropriety and bungling was established, the secretaries do recommend recoveries and, in some instances, even referring the matter to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) or the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).

This could be ascertained from the record of PAC. The cabinet member pointed out that hardly ever any major financial scam was brought to the fore by the AGP. “If there are still any misgivings about the intentions of the bureaucracy, the ministers may be empowered by nominating them as the PAOs,” he added.

According to the sources, majority of cabinet members endorsed the view that the fault lay in the financial audit of the AGP, which concentrated more on procedural irregularities rather than financial embezzlement.

Drawing a clear distinction between the system audit and financial audit, the special assistant on poverty alleviation and social safety explained that the AGP was more focused on the former rather than the latter.

She added that at time such observations were made like the decisions of the cabinet and board had been questioned in recent audit paras pertaining to the Ehsaas Programme. “The prime minister has decided to form a committee to recommend parameters for financial audit of the AGP to make it more focused, meaningful and accountable,” she said.