Event Report Bangladesh Enterprise Institute. Divisional Meeting CAG Audit Briefing for Civil Society & Media Representatives

Transcription

1 PROGATI Promoting governance, accountability, transparency and integrity Tel: Fax: Website: House 54/A, Road 16, Block A, Banani, Dhaka 1213 Bangladesh Event Report Bangladesh Enterprise Institute Divisional Meeting CAG Audit Briefing for Civil Society & Media Representatives Objective of Event: Conference Room of Deputy Commissioner, Bogra April 11, 2012 Submitted: April 25, The CAG audit briefing in Bogra will provide an opportunity for the CAG to strengthen ties with Bogra district level civil society and media representatives and expand the understanding of how the institution is serving its oversight functions. 2. The interactive discussion between the civil society/media representatives and the divisional level CAG officials will determine their complementary roles in promoting transparency and accountability for better management and use of public resources. 1. Facilitator or Presenter: Jamil Osman, Project Manager, BEI Achievements and Observations: 1. A CAG divisional level audit briefing for civil society and media representatives was organized by BEI in Bogra on 11 April, 2012 at Deputy Commissioner s conference room. A total of 63 persons out of which 48 civil society personnel, NGO executives, print and electronic media representatives participated in the meeting. The meeting began at a.m. and lasted for 2 hours and 15 minutes. Mr. Sarwar Mahmud, Deputy Commissioner of Bogra attended the meeting as Chief Guest. Advocate A.K.M. Mahbubur Rahman, the Mayor of the Pourashava also attended the meeting. 2. Mr. Jamil Osman, Program Manager, BEI acted as moderator of the meeting. At the outset he gave an introductory speech to the participants by explaining the purpose of the meeting, the nature of complementary role of the media/civil society vis-à-vis CAG s constitutional obligations. He said that as per Articles of the Constitution of Bangladesh, the CAG had been empowered to act both as a custodian of government treasury and an overseer of government financial management. On the other hand, the media and the civil society could play a vital role in combating corruption, misuse of public resources and misappropriation of public fund by exercising freedom of speech and expression guaranteed by Article 39 of the Constitution. The objectives of all these institutions had been complementary in nature as far as utilization of public money and public resources were concerned. The BEI, with the support of DAI and USAID, had arranged this kind of meeting to set up a common platform for the representatives of the CAG, the media and the civil society to engage in an interactive 1

2 discussion to promote the cause of good governance by ensuring transparency, accountability and integrity in every sphere of public administration. He informed the meeting that the BEI had decided to hold audit briefings in six districts during the financial year Three audit briefing sessions had already taken place in Comilla, Chittagong and Rajshahi and this would be the fourth one in the series. He said that the civil society and the media people welcomed these kind of interactive public discourse in all these places and freely participated in the discussion showing a great deal of their interests for the promotion of good governance within the public administration in particular and the society at large. He expressed his thanks and gratitude to the Deputy Commissioner and his colleagues for extending wholehearted cooperation in holding the meeting at the D.C. office. 2. Mr. Sarwar Mahmud, the Deputy Commissioner of Bogra formally inaugurated the meeting with a few words of appreciation for the organizers. He said that BEI deserved thanks for arranging such an important meeting among the media, the civil society and the officials of the CAG for discussing the role of CAG in ensuring transparency and accountability in the financial management of the government. He hoped that this kind of interactions would help the government in promoting good governance across public institutions for the benefits of the ordinary citizens of the country. 3. Mr. Khorshed Alam Khan, Component Manager, DAI briefly narrated the objectives and various facets of the PROGATI project undertaken by BEI in collaboration with DAI and financed by the USAID. He said that this kind of good governance oriented awareness advocacy program involving the CAG office started through PROGATI project. The media or for that matter the civil society at large had little or no clues to the proceedings of the Public Accounts Committee. The idea was to build up an effective consultation rapport among the concerned stakeholders to promote transparency and integrity in all spheres of public administration. Apart from strengthening the OCAG, PROGATI had been working with two other government oversight institutions i.e. Anti-Corruption Commission and Information Commission to help enhance their capacity as well as establish a meaningful communication and coordination among these three oversight bodies for the sake of promoting transparency, accountability and integrity in government organizations. 4. Advocate A.K.M. Mahbubur Rahman, the Mayor of Bogra Pourashava explained that auditing did not automatically imply corruption it was by far a procedure to investigate the irregularities, if any, committed in the discharge of the duties or responsibilities reposed on the government officials. He cited an example of integrity of a female officer of Audit and Accounts department who did actually slash a travelling allowance bill of her husband for an unauthorized claim. He expressed his frustration about the current situation in public administration. He said that now very few among the civil servants did respect and abide by the rules and regulations; lack of efficiency and integrity had driven this administration to a vulnerable point. Time had come to restore sanity and sanctity in the modus operandi of the government. This would be more applicable for government financial management. He thanked BEI for organizing such an important event and told the audience that this would remain as a milestone in the history of the financial management reforms of this country. 5. A key note paper entitled The role of CAG in ensuring transparency and accountability in Government financial management was presented by Mr. Md. Moshiul Hasan, Divisional Controller of Accounts, Rajshahi and Mr. Md. Mahfuzur Rahman, Deputy Director, Directorate of Railway Audit, Rajshahi. The key note paper, presented in Bangla, clearly spelt out both mission and vision of the CAG in terms of his constitutional duties and 2

3 responsibilities under the provisions of Articles of the constitution: mission to bring transparency and accountability in the financial management of the Government in order to attain good governance; and vision to ensure proper utilization of public resources through effective auditing and establish transparency and accountability in public financial management by providing authentic and appropriate information and data. 5. The functional relationship among the Parliament, the Government and the CAG was duly explained; the overall jurisdiction of the CAG activities, the functions of all the Audit Directorates, the classifications of audit, the results of audit activities; the nature of audit reporting and its contents and format; glossary of audit terms and terminology; the types of audit objections; the importance and role of audit information/contents in assisting the executive organs of the Government for taking appropriate policy decisions, in empowering the people, in strengthening and institutionalizing democracy, in making the Government accountable to the Parliament and in creating pressure on the Government for establishing good governance all these were discussed in detail. 6. The characteristics of good governance and the role of CAG in establishing good governance were explained in detail; the importance of creating awareness about CAG activities among the civil society and media representatives to enhance the cause of good governance was discussed. 7. The role of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) in issuing directives on annual audit reports submitted by the CAG was discussed; the amounts of collection made due to audit findings and expenditure incurred in the year 2010 were revealed; the audit activities of the Commercial Audit Directorate, Rajshahi Zone were also highlighted; and a case study relating to audit observations of West Zone Gas Company Limited, Nalka, Sirajganj for the year was cited as an example. 8. The power-point presentation was followed by a discussion session. As soon as the presentation was over, a number of civil society and media representatives participated in the open floor discussion. They raised several pertinent issues for interactive discussion. The moderator, the CAG/BEI/PROGOTI representatives, the Deputy Commissioner of Bogra also participated in the discussion. They tried their best to satisfy the queries of the question raisers. The issues raised and discussed in the meeting generated a great deal of enthusiasm among the discussants. 9. Mr. Chapal Saha, Bureau Chief, ATN News, Bogra commented that crores of taka was being wasted on medical instruments at Shahid Ziaur Rahman Medical College, Bogra. These instruments were purchased not for the benefit of the patients but for making money by the instrument suppliers in collusion with doctors responsible for the indent. Medical instruments valued at crores of taka were simply kept with negligence inside the hospital compound without being properly utilized. He informed the meeting that after repeated efforts, he could not get actual information from the Hospital authority regarding cost of the medical apparatus, budget provisions, tender documents, per day use of those instruments by the patients etc. He wanted to know how best the provisions of RTI Act be utilized in such a situation. Mr. Jamil Osman responded to his query by saying that as per provisions of RTI Act, 2009 the Hospital Authority was legally bound to appoint an Information Officer to provide answers to all relevant queries within 20 days of the submission of any written application. If he failed to do so, an appeal could be filed with his immediate higher authority. If the applicant was not satisfied with the decision of that authority, he could file an appeal for review to the 3

4 Information Commission. The Information Commission would likely to take serious cognizance of his application. If there happened to be some merit in that application and if it appeared that the Information Officer belonging to the hospital authority did not act in accordance with the provisions of the RTI Act, the Commission could direct the concerned authority to start departmental proceedings against him. Mr. Humayun Kabir, Vice President, BEI also responded by citing an example where punishment recommended by the Information Commission for a government official for non-compliance with the provision of RTI Act was upheld by the Supreme Court deciding on a petition made by the appellant. 10. Mr. Mohon Akhand, Bureau Chief, The Daily Samakal pointed out that the CAG website contained only old audit reports. Neither updated version of latest audit reports nor any work plan could be found in that website. Moreover, audit activities happened to be routine based, not issue based. Mr. Md. Saidur Rahman Sarker, the representative of the CAG replied that the CAG website contained the audit report for the year The CAG had been trying hard to minimize this time gap. However, anybody could get information from one of the ten Audit Directorates about the latest status of any particular audit event. Issue based audit was not common since it needed prior knowledge about those issues. Mr. Khorshed Khan opined that an audit report should contain proposed audit planning for the coming year so that media and civil society could know beforehand the framework of prospective audit. In that event media could provide the concerned Audit Directorate with relevant information. He also made it clear that performance audit could take care of issue based audit some of which had already been done by the CAG. 11. Mr. Md. Monzur-E-Mowla, District Information Officer, Bogra pointed out that a large number of audit objections were related to failure of an auditee institution to deduct VAT and income tax at source. Sometimes the rates/procedures of deduction for VAT and income tax were not available to the district/upazila level auditee organizations. Mr. Sarker informed the meeting that the auditee institutions at the district/upazila level should necessarily collect NBR s website address from which they could easily find out the appropriate rates and procedures of deduction for VAT and income tax for any year under consideration. 12. Ms. Monwara Begum, Executive Director, Prottasha Mohila Unnayan Sangstha, Bogra asked as to what extent the CAG audit teams were impartial in their audit observations and findings. Mr. Sarker clarified that the auditors involved in the process of auditing were always under the CAG s supervision and legally bound to maintain neutrality in the discharge of their official duties and responsibilities. 13. Mr. Md. Nazrul Islam, Regional Manager of BRAC, Bogra praised the organizers on behalf of the civil society of Bogra for taking such a unique step at the district level. He welcomed the discussion of the meeting and requested the organizers to hold such meetings in other districts of Bangladesh for the sake of raising awareness among the common masses. He asked if audit department s activities were confined to financial audit only or it could go beyond financial audit and pick up investigative audit leading to criminal proceedings. Mr. Sarker replied that the CAG performed financial audit. So far crime audit had not been the subject of the CAG. Mr. Khorshed said that Parliament could empower CAG to perform crime audit depending on the importance of the crime. Mr. Humayun Kabir endorsed his view by saying that the CAG derived enormous authority from the constitution itself to ensure transparency, accountability and integrity in the government financial management. So, the CAG could go beyond its routine work if empowered by the competent authority. 4

5 14. Mr. Md. Ziaur Rahman, Executive Director, SAPNO, Bogra wanted to know the names of the institutions that audited the 10 Audit Directorates. He said that the Audit Directorates were beset with corrupt people and asked whether corrupt officials of the Audit Directorates were brought to justice or not. Mr. Sarker replied that the CAG had been empowered to perform any kind of audit in any public institutions. However, for shortage of manpower, not external but internal audits had been regularly done in the Audit Directorates. He also clarified that, like other public offices, the Audit Directorates were not above corruption. The CAG himself acted as a watchdog over his own institutions to prevent corruption and malpractices. 15. Mr. Md. Azizul Hoque, Joint Director, TMSS pointed out that several times Bangladesh topped the list among most corrupt nations of the world. How much responsibility could be assigned to the Audit department for such a disgrace. Mr. Sarker replied that we must all share the responsibility for such a disgrace and no one alone should be blamed for this. However, if we could strengthen the oversight functions of three oversight institutions of the government, namely, CAG, ACC and IC, it would be possible to arrest the growth of corruption in the country. 16. Advocate A.K.M. Mahbubur Rahman, the Mayor of the Pourashava commented that the Registration offices were full of corrupt officials. They did not even follow the established procedures for registration. Common people were being harassed and exploited everyday. Both regular and performance audits could improve the situation a lot. 17. Ms. Mahfuz Ara Miva, Executive Director, PESD, Bogra opined that if audit could not be done every year, then the auditee institutions would not be under pressure to perform better in future in terms of financial management. Mr. Sarker replied that the Audit department had a serious dearth of manpower and it could utilize only 53% of its sanctioned strength. Every year only one-thirds of the budget could be brought under the purview of audit. 18. Mr. Sk. Md. Abu Hassanat, Chief Coordinator, Pollee Unnyon Prokolpo wanted to know about performance audit. Mr. Sarker clarified that Performance Audit was distinctly different from traditional expenditure based audit. It was concerned with value for money. In other words, all government purchases must fulfill 4 E s or criteria i.e. economy in transactions, efficiency in generating outputs, effectiveness in rendering performances and environment-friendly to consumption, use and depreciation. He further explained that performance audit was done on a limited scale in Bangladesh because this required specialized training and appropriate value judgment for the auditors. Mr. Khorshed cited an example to define the term performance audit in a plausible way. He said performance audit was different from traditional financial audit. The performance audit evaluated the real worth of an auditable entity in terms of its performance or utility. If a car was purchased by an auditee entity without giving an appointment to a driver for say 6 months of a financial year then the performance of that auditable object must have suffered to a great extent. Performance audit was more goal oriented than the financial audit. 19. Mr. Mahmudul Alam Nayan, General Secretary, Bogra Press Club and Staff reporter, the daily Janakantha suggested that performance audit should be done in the service sector of the government such as District Accounts Office, Land Office etc. where both harassment and corruption were rampant. He cited an example where he himself had to pursue a pension/provident fund case in the DAO office for not less than 6 months. He hoped that the situation would improve if performance audits were done in increasing numbers. Mr. Sarker 5

6 responded by saying that unfortunately the CAG had no executive authority over the auditee institutions. He could only decipher irregularities and malpractices and recommend the recovery of the fraudulently or irregularly spent government money. Even the recommendations of the PAC were not seriously implemented by the auditee organizations. Performance audit was a specialized job and at present the CAG had an acute shortage of trained personnel in this area. 20. Mr. Abul Kalam Azad, Staff Reporter, Naya Diganta, Bogra commented that if districtwise audit could be done then local people would be able to know about the audit issues and findings of that particular area. He also mentioned about the anomalies in issuing certificates against deductions of VAT and Income tax. Mr. Sarker replied that audit functions were being carried out on the basis of institutions and not on the basis of district. Information on audit for a particular organization of a district was available on the CAG website. He also clarified that as per current provisions of Income Tax law, it was the responsibility of the tax deducting authorities to issue tax deduction certificates to the concerned persons. 21. Mr Sarwar Mahmud, Deputy Commissioner of Bogra in his concluding speech told that so far audit had always been a dry subject generating negative image among the common people but with the introduction of this kind of audit briefings with the media and the civil society representatives, public image about the audit functions and the audit department would definitely change for the better and common people would be gradually able to understand the importance of public audit as an instrument of establishing transparency and accountability and for that matter good governance in the society at large and public offices in particular. 22. Mr. M. Humayun Kabir asked the participants from media and civil society if they could find any difference in understanding the topic of discussion before and after the briefing. They raised their hands and confirmed him that previously they had little or no knowledge about the issues discussed in the meeting and now they were going back with new ideas and new thoughts. After that Mr. Kabir gave a vote of thanks by expressing his gratitude to the Deputy Commissioner and the officials of the D.C. office for extending their full cooperation and support in organizing the audit briefing. He also thanked the participants for attending the meeting in a large number and for participating in the discussion. The meeting came to an end. Lunch was served after the meeting 23. Overall the objectives of the meeting were fully achieved. The meeting provided an opportunity for the CAG divisional representatives to make it absolutely clear to the audience i.e. the civil society and media representatives as to how the CAG, as per provisions of the constitution of Bangladesh and by means of official networks spread all over the country, carries out his duties and responsibilities to safeguard the public money and resources and ensure their optimum utilization in terms of financial propriety and discipline. The interactive discussions between the civil society/media representatives and the divisional level CAG officials have successfully generated enormous enthusiasm and created awareness, mutual understanding and trust for essential contributory and complementary roles of both the stakeholders in ensuring good governance by promoting transparency and accountability in government financial management. The participants admitted that previously they had little or no knowledge about the issues discussed in the meeting and now they were going back with new ideas and thoughts. 6

7 24. The meeting got both print and electronic media coverage. The daily newspapers Dainik Karatoa, Dainik Mukto Shokal, Dainik Uttarer Khabor, Dainik Bangla Bulletin and Dainik Satmatha provided a full coverage of the meeting. The ATN Bangla gave a good coverage of the meeting in its evening news bulletin. This shows that the meeting was well appreciated by the print and electronic media community. 25. The meeting was conducted with the full cooperation of the Deputy Commissioner, Bogra and other officials of the D.C. office. The conference room, the multi-media projector, the laptop all these were provided to BEI free of cost. The D.C. office wrote an official letter to the Power Development Authority to ensure an uninterrupted supply of electricity during the course of meeting. The Deputy Commissioner was keen enough to talk to PDB authority for this purpose and uninterrupted electricity was supplied throughout the meeting. The Deputy Commissioner was the chief guest of the meeting. He was present throughout the meeting despite his busy schedule and serious official engagements. He did actively participate in the proceedings of the meeting. Three Additional Commissioners and other high officials of the D.C. office also attended the meeting. 26. Although there was no provision for honorium/transport cost for the participants, the media and the civil society representatives attended the meeting in a large number. They actively took part in the discussion and made the meeting a success. General Recommendations: 1. The response from the media and the civil society representatives was unusually forthcoming. It indicated that they were mentally prepared for such kind of public discourse. It was quite surprising that they took enormous interest in audit briefing which was supposed to be more of academic and technical in nature. Similar nature of meeting arrangements should continue in future. Local NGOs might be involved with such kind of interactive discourse to continue this process of social interactions at regular intervals. The more such meetings could be arranged, the more the cause of good governance would be promoted. 2. The discussion of the meeting was not limited to CAG Audit briefing but centered around the greater perspectives of corruption, transparency, accountability, integrity in general. In future, the presentation should include the functions of three oversight institutions i.e. the CAG, the ACC and the Information Commission. 3. Considering the fact that the meeting was attended by a large number of media and civil society representatives more than expected and the response was highly positive, some local government officials across the Ministries/Divisions/Departments might also be invited to participate in the meeting in future so that this kind of awareness advocacy program could transform into a meaningful interactive public discourse for the sake of establishing good governance in the public offices of the districts/divisions. 7