AGP to audit every penny of national exchequer

ISLAMABAD: The Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP), Javed Jahangir Friday reiterated AGP’s mandate to conduct audit of accounts of all the public sector organizations and institutions running on public money.

“Wherever public money is involved and even if a single penny of public exchequer is utilized, we will conduct audit there” he asserted while speaking at International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) Certificate Distribution Ceremony here.

The event was jointly organized by USAID, Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) and the Institute of Cost and Management Accountants of Pakistan (IMCAP).

Javed Jahangir said that the AGP was entrusted with enhanced audit coverage and responsibility after 18th amendment, hence creating a challenging environment for this supreme audit organization.

He said that due to greater public awareness at national level, the expectation of the stakeholders in context of accountability had also increased; hence general public and legislature were expecting more from the Department of Auditor General of Pakistan (DAGP).

He said that in line with its Strategic Plan 2015-19, the AGP was pursuing a reform agenda, concentrating on the institutional capacity-building of the department.

He said that Pakistan had adopted the International Standards of Supreme Audit Institutions (ISSAIs) to conduct audit in line with international practices.

The AGP said that the department also had comprehensive plan to automate its entire audit process through Audit Information Management System (AIMS), which would go long way to augment efficiency of the department and strengthen its supervision and monitoring, resultantly provide quality audit products.

He said that the DAGP had rich and diverse professional human resources, which is necessary to execute its mandate efficiently.

He said that the department had qualified professionals for almost all areas of auditing operations, hence enabling it to discharge its mandate with great flexibility.

He congratulated all the course participants for completing the IPSAS certification course, lauding the efforts of USAID and Training of Pakistan (TFP) in arranging this course for capacity building.

He urged them to bring into practice the knowledge they have gained from the course for enhancing the performance of different audit operations.

It is pertinent to mention that about 200 officials from AGP were trained under this programme so far and the programme intends to train upto 500 officials by the end of 2018.

Meanwhile, speaking on the occasion, the representatives from USAID, ACCA and ICMA highlighted the importance of transparent and reliable audit practices for the development of any country.

Later, certificates were distributed among the participants of the course.