Severe indictment from the Audit Director

Appointed Director of Audit last May, Dharamraj Paligadu is no fool. In his first report, tabled Tuesday in the National Assembly, he highlights dozens of shortcomings and notes laxity that costs taxpayers billions of rupees. He considers financial management too amateurish and argues that performance management needs to be improved.

“To improve accountability in the public sector, financial management must be professionalized and the performance management system must be improved,” says Dharamraj Paligadu, Director of Audit, in his foreword.

“As the Director of Audit, it is my duty to provide the National Assembly and the general public with information on achieving value for money regarding essential services provided to citizens, because every year , the government spends billions of rupees on these services,” he says.

And first remark: “Despite spending some 178 billion rupees for the 2022-2023 financial year, there are delays in the implementation of essential service projects which have caused harm to the population”.

He cites two examples to illustrate his point. The first concerns the immense number of drain projects which have not yet become reality. “Eighty-six percent of the drain projects entrusted to the National Development Unit have not yet been implemented during the 2022-2023 financial year,” he denounces.

The second example cited is the Internet Connectivity Project which “has not yet been implemented in secondary schools although it was initiated a long time ago”.

The Director of Audit draws the attention of the National Assembly and those responsible for public sector governance to the fact that an analysis of the main findings for the 2022-2023 financial year “revealed that a mechanism “Inadequate accountability at different levels within government ministries and departments is the root cause of the recurrence of the same problems reported over the last three financial years.”

83% of ministries do not respect the law

The Director of Audit notes that more than three-quarters of ministries are in violation of the law.

“As of January 12, 2024, 83% of government ministries and departments have failed to comply with section 4B of the Finance and Audit Act in relation to submitting their performance report within the statutory deadlines, while 57% set Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) were not achieved,” he criticizes.

Over the past three financial years, the National Audit Bureau has repeatedly reported the following issues, among others, within government ministries and departments:

• Weaknesses in expenditure control.
• Deficiencies in project management.
• Shortcomings in purchasing management.
• Deficiencies in asset management.
• Non-compliance with applicable laws.

That 33% of the problems raised in the previous report resolved

The Director of Audit has not only unearthed problems in different government ministries and departments. It also followed up on 168 issues raised in the audit report of last year, i.e. for the financial year 2021-22.

This demonstrates that as of February 2024, “around 33% had been resolved at the level of government ministries and departments, leaving 67% partially resolved or unresolved.”

Worse still, “problems highlighted in previous years were seen again in the 2022-23 financial year. An analysis of the findings revealed that the root causes for the recurrence of these problems are inadequate accountability mechanism and monitoring system at different levels in government ministries and departments.” From his point of view, we absolutely must act and very quickly.