By: Staff Writer
Colombo (LNW): National Audit Act No 08 0f 2018 is to be amended soon, making legal provisions to tackle public sector corruption, financial fraud and irregularities.
The Auditor General’s Department will be given wide powers via the new amendment of the National Audit Act next year, justice ministry sources said.
The new amendment of the National Audit Act will empower the AuditorGeneral to levy surcharges on officers, including Chief Accounting Officers, for failure to properly discharge responsibility for oversight and accountability for use of public resources.
According to the proposed draft bill, the Auditor-General will be allowed to share findings, preliminary or otherwise, with law enforcement authorities for possible criminal investigation into fraud and corruption revealed by the audit query, prior to the full report being tabled in Parliament.
The Ministry of Justice recently revealed that the Auditor-General has had little control of the hiring, promotion, and firing of officers, as well as limited involvement in budget setting and allocation.
The creation of the Audit Service Commission was intended to strengthen resource management, but the intended impact remains to be felt up to now, it added.
According to the official procedure, a report is filed with the Chief Accounting Officer of the ministry or state entity being audited for the imposition of a surcharge on the value of the deficiency or loss in each of the entity’s transactions.
Amending this provision to allow for the direct reporting and imposition of surcharges by the Auditor-General would address the current procedural challenges that have interfered with the effective utilisation of this power.
It has been revealed that since the 2018 Act came into force, no officials have been made subject to surcharges, despite its significant provision for holding personally – financially –accountable for failure to prevent or remedy actions associated with fraud and corruption.
The Audit act No 08 0f 2018 was passed in parliament on July 5 2018 despite many obstacles.
The Audit Commission was among the independent commissions that were set up under the 19th amendment to the constitution passed in parliament on May 15 2015.
The newly appointed members of the Audit Service Commission were sworn in on the April 9 before the Speaker of the Parliament.
The Auditor General is appointed as the ex-officio Chairman to the Commission and accordingly, W.P.C. Wickramaratne took oath in the said position.
The state audit service is still to function properly as the salary issue of members of the service has not been settled, official sources said.
