Govt auditor needs to adopt latest professional practices: CAG

The government auditor needs to adopt latest professional practices while scrutinising public spending, Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) Shashi Kant Sharma has said.

"Supreme Audit Institutions (SAI) need to ensure that nothing escapes the public eye. At the same time, SAIs need to gear themselves up for tighter public scrutiny and thus need to establish impeccable credentials.

"They need to adopt the latest professional practices; augment their technical and physical capacities, and strengthen their ethics and integrity frameworks," he said.

Sharma was speaking at the Asian Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (ASOSAI) conference in Kuala Lumpur.

He said people are increasingly demanding efficiency in delivery of public services, accountability of the public service providers, and transparency in spending of public funds.
 

During the conference, Sharma handed over the chairmanship of ASOSAI to the auditor general of Malaysia. Established in 1979, ASOSAI's major objective is providing SAIs with opportunities for training to government auditors for improving audit quality and performance.