Media, accountability and Supreme Audit Institutions

New Delhi, Feb 19 (UNI) In a world where accountability and governance are becoming the buzz words in assessing the performance of governments, Supreme Audit Institutions in Asia, like the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, feel that liaisoning with the media is essential for achieving these ends.

In democracies, the fourth estate plays a critical role in keeping the wheels of the system moving, but perhaps late in the day Supreme Audit Institutions(SAIs) now want to have an effective media policy.

This was the broad message which emerged at a five-day international conference on 'Managing Audit Results', which concluded here recently. Representatives of the Supreme Audit Organisations of 24 Asian countries including New Zealand, Vietnam, Japan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Oman participated in the event.

It was organised under the aegis of the Asian Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions.

The conference was inaugurated by Mr Vijayendra N Kaul, Comptroller and Auditor General of India.

''Most SAIs recognise the importance of communicating audit results through the media and to the public. However, many are restricted by their mandates from using such public forums to share audit results, while others have not established processes by which to do so'' the conference said in a set of recommendations made at the conclusion of the event.

SAIs showed a sense of recognition for the need to manage the risks associated with using the media as a form of communication for audit results. They also understood the need to make the language of their audits reports easier to make them popular among the media and the public.

The conference outlined a set of startegies to making the SAIs more effective institutions. Some elements of this strategy are; --Establishing communication protocols with auditee so that communication, cooperation and coordination can be enhanced and their willingness to implement audit results can be increased; -- Preparing a summarised version of audit reports for use by other stakeholders that is easy to understand and concise; -- Establishing a communication strategy for sharing audit results with national committees and PACs in a timely manner to ensure their interest and deliberations on audit findings; --Establishing a media policy and process by which information on audit results can be shared throughout the year with various media and public sources.

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