IT was no customary emotion-packed valedictory speech the outgoing Comptroller and Auditor General M Hafizuddin Khan made on his last day in the statutory office. He submitted 21 audit reports to the President getting nearest ever to the calendar year and in effect reflecting inefficiency and corruption in the government's expenditure pattern since 1987-88. Executives could not account for Tk 1601 crore and DESA failed to collect Tk 999 crore in arrear electricity bills. Closely on the heels of such dismal disclosures, Khan, on being interviewed by the BBC, made a pronouncement that confirmed most people’s worst apprehension about the level of official corruption. "Bangladeshis are pretty close to be regarded as a corrupt nation", warned the outgoing CAGB. Earlier, an independent international commission on corruption had placed Bangladesh among the top ten corrupt countries of the world. The financial irregularities committed across the board mirrored violation of rules, wastage of government resources and uutiight defalcation' and expropriation.

Auditing standards in Bangladesh have been generally weak but these are the weakest in the government sector. In the governmental behemoth it has been a case of post-auditing, meaning thereby that the CAGB's office scrutinises the expenditure incurred and not the expenditure proposed. So, it is the head of an office who has to primarily do the expenditure control job if the resources of the state are not to be drained out. Secretaries to the government being fhe chief accounting officers of the ministries undei their charge have a clearly laid-out responsibility in seeing that the financial rules are strictly followed by all concerned. A CAGB's representative may be placed in every ministry but not surely at every directorate, corporation or an office. Even so, their strength needs to be increased given the volume of budgetary allocations.

Auditing has had a very low priority with successive governments. If it were not so, then the CAGB, as the holder of a constitutional post, would have been more effective as a state functionary. His warnings are hardly heeded, his recommendations are trifled with.

Without proper auditing there cannot be any transparency and accountability of the government. In a resource-poor country that has a crucial foreign aid component to its budgeting, auditing is sine qua non for good management. Let there be a push for a strong auditing culture in the country.