AG’s fight against corruption fails as state machinery stalls accountability
Sri Lanka Auditor General’s (AG) Department’s efforts to expose corruption irregularities and financial misappropriation by conducting audit inspections in 1980 state institutions have become a fruitless exercise due to the lack of legal authority of government audit chief and failure of the state machinery to take prompt action.
Under the present state of affairs more than 95 per cent of the 2,500 reports issued by the AG in recent times have not been acted upon by the relevant institutions responsible for implementing the recommendations, official data shows.
This backdrop serves as a further encouragement to confirm the prevailing corruption and decay in the country and therefore, the present government has to pay urgent attention to this matter in the interest of a just society.
Many legal reforms, including the Anti- Corruption Act 2023, have been introduced earlier on the recommendations of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
However, considering the challenges that the country is currently facing, it is stated in the current government’s position that these reforms are not sufficient.
Auditor General W.P.C. Wickramaratne informed the Committee on Public Finance (COPF) at a recent meeting that the department is entrusted with auditing 1980 state institutions and it has to submit audit with limited staff reports within three months.
Even after the submission of reports to Parliament and relevant ministries exposing corrupt practices, financial misappropriation and irregularities of state institutions, those were stagnating without any action against relevant perpetrators and recovering losses caused to the state, he pointed out.
He complained that the authority to enforce surcharges on officials responsible for financial misappropriation has not been given to the auditor general although the IMF has already made a recommendation on this matter.
Furthermore the problem was also due to the auditor general’s department’s lack of legal powers to enforce its recommendations, a high ranking official and leading member of the Sri Lanka Audit Service Association, on condition of anonymity, told The Sunday Times Business. Without the power to initiate any legal action, these reports are either sent to the back-burner or destroyed, he pointed out.
Those audit reports are scrutinised by the Parliamentary watchdog committees such as the Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) and the Committee on Public Accounts (COPA), but there was no follow up action afterwards, he complained.
The responsibility of COPE and COPA to make recommendations only after examining the audit reports and its implementation is vested in the Ministry Secretaries who are the Chief Accounting Officers.
Based on the audit findings, Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee can investigate further, summon officials for clarification, and recommend corrective actions to the relevant government ministries.
In cases of serious misconduct or fraud, individuals involved in the irregularities may face disciplinary action, including potential legal prosecution.
However nothing can be expected from these officers in relation to follow up action of law enforcement and asset recovery on audit detection as they have to work in accordance with the whims and fancies of political authority, he added
It has recommended to amend section 9 of the Audit Act to allow the Auditor General to share findings, preliminary or otherwise, with law enforcement bodies for the purposes of possible criminal investigation into fraud and corruption revealed by the audit(s) in question, prior to the full report being tabled in Parliament.
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