Letters
to the Editor
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| Audit
Department: The importance of being independent When the Audit Department was independent, independent even of the Treasury, when there was only one Deputy Auditor General; and two assistant Auditors General, the officers of the Department also were independent and used their investigative technology (not mere accounting qualifications) acquired through experience to unearth the “modus operandi” in perpetrating “frauds” and acts “contrary to legislature”. They were all officers of Parliament and answerable only to the Public Accounts Committee first and later both to the Public Accounts Committee and the Committee on Public Enterprises. During such a golden era of the Audit Department we were able to:
To achieve this, our officers (not Auditor General or his deputy or assistants) sought legal opinion and expert advice on their own and had thwarted attempts towards misappropriation, malpractices and frauds. However, when the department became dependent on the Prime Minister first, the results were counter productive in that a top rank official of the Audit Department was sent on compulsory leave for one year for not transferring an audit officer who bared the fraud when such a request was made by a politician to the said top rank official. I hope this would underline the need for the Auditor General to be independent and have the Auditor General’s power to issue certificates of surcharge even on secretaries to ministries, heads of departments and chairmen of corporations, boards and authorities. In fairness to all Auditors’ General all of them were agitating for this, but it has still not materialized. An independent Auditor General should be vested with this power too. In my opinion, decentralisation of the Audit Department had contributed at least in a small scale, because one of the functions of audit is to act as a deterrent in perpetrating frauds or misappropriation. It is necessary that the department should be centralized and every facility should be afforded to it, including adequate budgetary provisions for buildings and staff and equipment. International lending authorities such as the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and the like should place their trust on an independent Auditor General and strengthen his hand to achieve the desired value for money. Nagaretnam
Nadarajah, All
for the sake of going to that land of liberty If the answer is positive go to a Travel Agent and show your passport. They will tell you for how long it is valid and help you to fill the visa form. Be sure that you insert the correct size photograph or else the woman sergeant in the Embassy will scream at you and tell you to go across the road and get a proper size photograph. Before you go on the stipulated date you must have a Bank Draft equal to Rs. 10,400 with you. You are asked to be there between 7.45 and 8.30 a.m. No one will be taken in after that. Most people are there before 8 a.m. and we all stand in the scorching sun on the pavement for over 45 minutes. This is hell. There is no shade at all. People passing by look at us and have a good laugh. We look as if we are just about to be taken to Welikada remand jail. A few are taken in at a time. The woman sergeant is rude and instructs a person from the Embassy to go across on to the other side of the road to get her a hot wade or a thosai - because she has not had her breakfast. Then this man gives a call to say that what she wanted is not available. She then tells him to bring a hot 'banis'. The displayed calendar month on the notice board is January 2006. We are now in March 2006. How efficient! Finally when we get to the main section we go into a room with only a limited number of seats. Very often there are more people than seats. There is one bottle of water with some paper cups but not even one vending machine. So arm yourself with some food and drink for if you are a diabetic you will be in real trouble. The air-conditioning is at its lowest level. Don't hope to come home before 1 p.m. This is the Apollo ride to the Moon. Are you willing to go on it or keep your hard earned money and stay at home! The choice is yours. Mrs.
Soma Eradicating
Rabies, what you and the govt. can do
NJ Noise
and poll promises Then there is the motor vehicle repair outfit using half the road and maintaining a constant noise by revving up engines and releasing toxic gases from paint chemicals and carbon monoxide fumes. At this time when electioneering is at its height, it is appropriate to question as to who gave the licence to conduct those workshops in residential areas and what steps have been taken by the city fathers to ensure peaceful and healthy living for the residents. This is apart from the many other questions that should be answered by the local councillors such as garbage disposal, broken pavements, pot holed roads, unauthorized structures etc. The promise of better times will no longer hoodwink the voter.
Saying and doing are two different things. The
state of English on TV It is also true that more and more Sinhala teledramas contain a sprinkling of English words in their dialogues. Perhaps this stems from a feeling of inferiority and is meant to give the teledrama some status. I found this same mentality in Japan where name boards of commercial houses contained a few English words, mostly incongruous. Even Japanese songs delivered by youngsters in musical shows did not fail to have a line of English words which were hilariously and ridiculously wrong in grammar and content. On the subject of TV commercials, the movie "Storm Catcher" was prominently displayed as "Storm Cather" repeatedly. Anyone with even a slight knowledge of the English language would have realised that there could not be such a word in the dictionary, but it appears that there was no one at the TV station competent enough to even detect such a glaring mistake. If someone in authority does not do something to rectify this situation, our TV productions would become comedies among the local and international communities.
R. Norton It’s
our lives you road manics! I was seated near the window and got the worst of the impact. Even the passengers in the other bus shouted at the driver of our bus. If the authorities are concerned about giving the daily travellers a better service without leaving half the population dead or maimed for life, they need to take strict action in cases like this. Traffic police are seen doing a good job during the day, but what about them being on the road before 8 a.m. and after 7 p.m.? Mrs.
S. Fernando
'Letters
to the Editor' should be brief and to the point. Address them to: 'Letters to the Editor, The Sunday Times, P.O.Box 1136, Colombo, Sri Lanka. Or e-mail to editor@sundaytimes.wnl.lk or features@sundaytimes.wnl.lk Please note that letters cannot be acknowledged or returned. |
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