From the International Desk
1. CAG of India elected as Member of the United Nations Board of Auditors
- Mr. Shashi Kant Sharma, the Comptroller & Auditor General of India has been elected as Member of the United Nations Board of Auditors for a six year term beginning 1st July, 2014. The election was held on 1st November at New York at UN Headquarters. India defeated Philippines, the other candidate in the fray for this position, with a convincing margin. Out of the 186 votes cast, India got 124 votes against 62 for Philippines. CAG of India has earlier served as member of the UN Board of Auditors from 1993 to 1999.
- The General Assembly of the United Nations established the United Nations Board of Auditors to audit the accounts of the United Nations organization and its funds and programmes and to report its findings and recommendations to the Assembly through the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ). The Board of Auditors is completely independent and is solely responsible for the conduct of the audit. Presently, the Board is responsible for audit of the UN organizations, the prominent ones being UN Headquarters, UN Peacekeeping Operations, UN Development Programme (UNDP), UNICEF, UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), UN Environment Programme (UNEP), UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT), UN Women and UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
- The General Assembly appoints three members to the Board of Auditors, each of whom must be the Auditor-General (or officer holding the equivalent title) of a Member State. The present members of the Board of Auditors are Tanzania, UK and China. China will be completing its term in June 2014 and will thus be vacating the Asia-Pacific seat on the UN Board of Auditors. This seat would now be taken over by India as a result of victory in this election.
2. The International role of the Supreme Audit Institution of India extends to five areas:
- INTOSAI,
- ASOSAI,
- Global Working Group,
- Audits of International Organizations and
- Bilateral relations with other SAIs.
The C&AG of India occupies important positions in the above agencies. The prominent ones among these are the Chair of INTOSAI Committee on Knowledge Sharing (KSC), the INTOSAI Working Group on IT Audit (WGITA), the Panel of the External Auditors of the UN and its Agencies, etc. The C&AG of India is also the Chairman of ASOSAI. Both domestic and international engagements associated with the above responsibilities of the C&AG are being looked after by the International Relations Division in the Headquarters Office. Some of the recent major events involving active participation of SAI India were:
- A meeting of the IT experts from the SAIs of India, United States, Indonesia and Brazil was held from 7 to 25 January 2013 at Mumbai and Delhi to design an e-course and develop IT Audit guide and handbook. One of the expected outputs of the Capacity Building Program on IT Audit is the development of IT audit guide and a handbook based on training materials developed for the AFROSAI (E) region by the INTOSAI Working Group on IT Audit and IDI. To disseminate the guidelines to the wider INTOSAI community, IDI plans to launch an e-course on IT audit using the IT audit guide and handbook being developed. SAI India, being Chair of the Working Group on IT Audit, has piloted these products to XXI INCOSAI held in Beijing, China in October, 2013 for its endorsement.
- In the capacity as the Chairman of ASOSAI, the C&AG of India chaired the last meeting of the Governing Board of ASOSAI held at Manila, Philippines from 19 to 20 February 2013. Apart from the normal proceedings/presentation of reports, the SAIs of Japan and Pakistan were elected as the representatives of ASOSAI on the INTOSAI Governing Board for the period 2013-2019.
- On the invitation of the Auditor General of Cambodia, the C&AG of India led a delegation to Cambodia from 23-24 February 2013. The invitation was under the aegis of existing MOU between the two SAIs on bilateral cooperation on capacity building in the field of public sector auditing.
- Under the joint initiatives of IDI and ASOSAI, the 3i Management Workshop was organized in Phnom Penh, Cambodia for the top management of SAIs of the Asian region from February 27 to March 1, 2013. The 3i Programme for the implementation of level 2 and level 4 International Standards for Supreme Audit Intitutions (ISSAIs) in SAIs of developing countries in the ASOSAI region are being successfully organized with the objective to raise awareness related to ISSAI implementation. The C&AG of India was represented at this workshop by two senior officers.
- The ISSAI Harmonization Project is revising the fundamental auditing principles with the objective of providing a conceptual basis for public sector auditing and ensuring consistency in the ISSAI framework. The 5th Working Session of International Standards for Supreme Audit Institutions (ISSAI) Harmonization Project Group was held in Chandigarh from 8-11 April 2013. Fifteen participants from 10 SAIs, including SAI India, participated in the Session.
- 5th Indo Kuwait Seminar was held at Shillong from 29 April to 2 May 2013. Under the MOU between the SAIs of India and Kuwait, a joint seminar on mutually agreed topics is held every year, alternatively in each SAI. The topic of the 5th seminar was “Quality Assurance and Quality in Audit”. Four participants from SAI Kuwait and four from SAI India attended the seminar. The delegation from Kuwait also met C&AG of India and appreciated the ongoing cooperation between the two SAIs.
In addition the above domestic and international engagements, the C&AG of India and other nominated officers from SAI India participated in 14 other meetings/seminars organized by different SAIs.
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