Vajpayee on Audit
Addressing the conference of AGs on 7th April 1999, Mr. Vajpayee, remarked :
And audit is always a post-mortem in that it is undertaken after the expenditure has been incurred. Yet, it enables the Government and also the public to learn from how the money was spent, assess the outcome against the targets and fix responsibility for those who misused taxpayers’ money. Therefore, after the Audit Report is prepared, it is placed before Parliament or State Legislatures. It is followed by an Action Taken Note by the concerned Government. However, experience shows that in India this does not achieve the desired results. Governments do not always place all the records before the Auditors, despite the relevant law stating that the auditors shall have the access to whatever they want. The Public Accounts Committee often finds it difficult to go through in detail, all the Reports that it gets. The Public Accounts Committee can only recommend remedial action to the Government. Acceptance and implementation of the recommendation is the prerogative of the Government. Consequentially the financial control that the Legislature is supposed to exercise over the executive is weak. This results in an increasing number of scams and other examples of misuse of Government machinery. Those who perpetrate them know that first they are not likely to be caught and even if they are, unless it is a large amount, it will simply be buried in one of the paragraphs of a report that is not always read and acted upon. The serious flaws of omission and commission in the use of Public resources are the main reason why developmental projects especially those in the social sector have failed to deliver the expected results. This has to change.
Yes, indeed it has to, but Audit too has to change!