CAG wants punishment for officials ''sleeping over audit reports''
New Delhi, June 8 (UNI) Dismissing contention that the office of Comptroller and Auditor General has been reduced to ''a mere paper tiger'', CAG Vijyendra Nath Kaul has said that the Central and state governments must accept the audit reports on ministries and PSUs in all seriousness and ''punish officials found sleeping over them''.
''Every year in his report, the CAG raises about three thousand objections but the Central and state governments do not act upon them seriously,'' Mr Kaul told 'Outlook' (Hindi).
As a corrective measure, the CAG said he had now instructed that cases related to corruption and cheating should be highlighted in bold etters in audit reports, which would impel officials to act on them in right earnest.
''Doodh aur malai ko alag kar diya jaye taki malai par to karvai shooro ho (Milk should be separated from cream so that action could be initaited at least on cream),'' he quipped.
Commenting publicly for the first time on the functioning of the governmment, Mr Kaul, who assumed the CAG's office five years ago, rued that even at the level of bureaucracy, the responsibility was not being taken with seriousness at all.
He said accountability must be fixed on the bureaucracy for implementing the audit reports and punishment meted out to those officials who were found lax in taking action on the audit reports on various ministries.
Asked about corruption and lack of accountability in the system, the CAG said unless seriousness was shown for fixing responsibility, the benefit of of audit would neither accrue nor would it become effective.
''The para relating to objections in an audit report is like a vegetable which, if kept for an inordinately long time, will start rotting,'' observed Mr Kaul.
The CAG said if the government was keen to get the maximum benefits from CAG reports, it would have to ensure speedy action on them and also fix accountability on government officials.
''Whenever we inquire about actions on CAG reports, we are invariably confronted with one excuse or another. This will not do.
Unless you show the seriousness to fix accountability within the system, you will not be able to extract maximum benefits even if you keep on spending on audits.'' To a suggestion that the role of the CAG had been reduced to ''a mere papar tiger'', Mr Kaul said people in the government, to a large extent, might be thinking in these terms. ''But in a democracy, nothing is kept secret for a long time. Ultimately, every thing is revealed and punishment is also meted out to the guilty.'' About the need to provide more authority and powers to the CAG, he said, ''It is true that the office of CAG can be made more effective, but for such a proposition, it is imperative to attach more importance to fixing accountability... Punish those officials who continue to sleep over CAG reports and fail to take any action.'' He also conceded that the CAH had been playing a significant role in putting fetters on governmental corruption.
''All the important cases involving corruption have been brought to the fore because of CAG reports only. The CAG has also been the first to raise fingers on land scams of some important political leaders,'' he said, preferring not to divulge their names.
He also said that though action was not initiated immediately in some cases, but later those very cases turned the politics upside down.
UNI