Public Money Expenditure
CAG blames errant secys
The secretaries, the government's principal accounting officers, in most cases do not ensure accountability in expending the taxpayers' money, said the auditor general in an interaction with the media at his office yesterday.
As a result, the country's financial anomalies and corruption keep rising consistently, said Ahmed Ataul Hakim, comptroller and auditor general (CAG) of Bangladesh.
He said that though it is the duty of principal accounting officers to ensure financial discipline in their respective organisation, they do not do it let alone rectifying those anomalies and misappropriation reported by the CAG.
Office of the CAG and USAID-funded Progati, a programme for good governance and transparency, organsied the view exchange meeting at Audit Bhaban to highlight the CAG's recently launched Media Cell.
The CAG office, which is a constitutional body, can only make recommendations to rectify an irregularity in public money expenditure, but cannot prosecute anybody, said the auditor general.
He said the CAG submits its reports on expenditure of public money to Public Accounts Committee of the parliament through the country's president, being able only to expose a tip of an iceberg of financial corruption.
Farid Hossain, bureau chief of news agency AP, said that as the CAG and mass media pursue common goals of ensuring transparency and accountability, there should exist a professionally friendly relationship between the two.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.
Comments