CAG should audit PPPs, Panchayati Raj bodies: Rai

Backs demands for a collegium type of selection for CAG, strongly defends the concept of presumptive loss

Outgoing Comptroller and Auditor General Vinod Rai favours bringing all private-public partnerships (PPPs), Panchayati Raj Institutions and societies getting government funds within the ambit of the CAG.

As he prepares to demit office tomorrow after an eventful tenure at the head of the Constitutional financial watchdog, he strongly defends the reports including on 2G spectrum allocation during his term that had triggered a number of controversies and raised the hackles of the government, and bringing in the concept of presumptive loss in audit.

He says at no time during the turbulent days the thought of quitting came to him when he was attacked from several quarters.

After a five-and-half year tenure in the office, Rai also backed demands for a collegium type of selection for CAG though he was not very sure about the effectiveness of a multi-member body.

Citing the example of the National Rural Health Mission executed by societies getting hundred per cent funds from government, Rai said, the government had requested the CAG to do the audit and they did it.

CAG does not leak reports
Rai also dismissed charges that he was behind the leak of controversial audit reports on 2G spectrum and coal block allocations.

“In the course of the audit process, if somebody asks a question under Right to Information, the CIC (Central Information Commission) has held that we are bound to answer. So, it is not leaking,” he told PTI.

The CAG said he was of the opinion that nobody else should see a report before it is tabled in Parliament. He had written to the Prime Minister in this regard, but it was decided that there was no breach of Parliamentary privilege.

Attacking  R P Singh
Rai today attacked R P Singh, former director-general, Audit  Post and Telecommunications, for disowning the report on 2G spectrum allocation on "afterthought" and observed that loyalty to a profession should be maintained even after retirement.

"There is a certain professional integrity that all of us must have. So, when we are on our jobs, it is not fair for us to fulfil our professional duties and then as an afterthought, post-retirement, repudiate all that and go back on it," he added.

Rai was commenting on R P Singh, , disowning the CAG report on spectrum allocation after retirement, and claiming he had been forced to sign the controversial report which pegged the loss at ~1.76 lakh crore.  

"It (disowning report) is not a fair thing to do because each one of us should not have personal loyalty, which means person-to-person loyalty. Our loyalty should be to our profession. That is where I think professional integrity is of great importance," Rai said.

Everyone needs to be "truly faithful" to his or her profession, he added.     He insisted that the audit reports are collective effort and the system is so robust that no one, even the CAG, can influence them.     "This particular report on the spectrum also underwent a peer-review where the same DG made a presentation to his peers who went through the report to ensure that it is objective, well balanced and does not have any nuance which is not factually not borne out," Rai noted.     The CAG report, tabled in Parliament in November 2010, had raised a political storm that led to sacking of Telecommunications minister A Raja and setting up of a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to probe the issue. The controversy over 2G spectrum allocation also led to cancellation to 122 licences by the Supreme Court.