The government is likely to appoint a UK-based consulting firm to strengthen the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) by enhancing its professional capacity in a bid to ensure quality of audit reports and financial disclosures.

The consulting firm--PKF (UK) LLP—will be appointed for capacity building of the CAG under the Strengthening Public Expenditure Management Program (SPEMP), officials said.

Finance Secretary Dr Mohammad Tareque sent a proposal before the cabinet committee on public purchase last week for its approval to appoint PKF (UK) LLP.

As per the proposal, the project will improve the organisational structure and raise capacity of CAG and its audits and financial management academy.

The SPEMP is a World Bank-led multi-donor trust fund, supported by Canada, Denmark, Netherlands, United Kingdom and the EU.

The project aims to modernise core institutions for budgeting and financial management of the country during a period from 2011 to 2014.

“Implementation of the project will help the government to save time and huge amount of public money as disclosure of most of the audit reports on different projects and organisation have been delayed by two to three years, partly due to the delay in scrutinising them by the Public Accounts Committee of the parliament” an official of the CAG said.

“There are few qualified accountants amongst the 3,000 auditors in the auditor general’s office” the official added.
He also said once the capacity and organisational structure of CAG is improved to an expected level, audit recommendations on any project would arrive in time, providing the government a scope to alter the criteria of the particular project.

The government floated an international tender last year to hire a consulting firm to boost the capacity and efficiency of the state auditors.

A total of five international firms participated in the tender. An evaluation committee selected PKF (UK) LLP as the successful bidder in terms of quality and expertise.

Other consulting firms who participated in the tender include Cowater international Inc of Canada, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India Private Limited and PricewaterhouseCoopers Pvt Ltd of India.

The Cowater international, the second highest scorer in the bidding process, questioned the transparency of the evaluation committee through filing a complaint with the World Bank.

The World Bank, however, rejected the complaint from the Canadian firm.
The total cost of the project has been estimated at Tk 588.7 million. Of the amount, the government will have to spend Tk 56.7 million to bear the airfare of the international consultants.

“Audit reports and financial disclosures will not be up to date without enhancing the functionality of the Public Accounts Committee of the parliament, since the state audit firm submits its report to the parliament”, M Hafizuddin Khan, former auditor general and adviser to a caretaker government, told daily sun yesterday.

The Daily Sun/Bangladesh/ 29th April 2012