New Delhi, Apr 24 (PTI) Deputy Comptroller and Auditor General K R Sriram on Monday highlighted the need for real time data sharing between the apex auditor and auditee so that a correct opinion could be formed with regard to the financial statements.
He was speaking at an interactive session organised by the office of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India with important central ministries.
The session was organised to identify the schemes, projects and activities of the government that the ministries would like CAG to evaluate and provide audit opinion and assurance on their implementation and outputs.
Ministries shared their concerns and constraints and sought advice from CAG on various issues pertaining to accounting, governance and building synergy between CAG and the executive bodies, CAG said in a release.
Both the audit authority and the ministries recognised the functional utility of the constitution of standing audit committees in the ministries to address action-taken notes/action-taken reports on the recommendations of the public accounts committee, improvement in accounting and financial reporting and prompt response to audit queries.
Deputy CAG and Chief Technical Officer Sriram highlighted the need for real time data sharing between the auditor and auditee for correct opinion of the auditor on the financial statements of the ministries.
Speaking at the occasion, Deputy CAG Rakesh Mohan pointed out that the audit process is a shared constitutional responsibility of the CAG and the ministries.
The release further said the government representatives were briefed on the structure of audit, approach, criteria and types of audit reports, jurisdictions of various offices under CAG and positive outcomes of previous audit reports on governance in India.
The outcome of previous interactive sessions was also discussed and useful impacts of such interactions were highlighted upon.
The session was part of the process of the audit planning exercise carried out by the CAG annually.
Senior officers from CAG, including DGs (Audit) responsible for the audit of central ministries, were present at the interactive session.
The session was attended by additional secretaries, joint secretaries, chief controllers of accounts and directors from 18 central ministries. PTI NKD CS HVA
