Sri Lanka’s audit service lacks teeth to combat corruption
Over 200 audit reports by the Auditor General’s Department exposing corrupt practices, financial misappropriation and irregularities of state institutions are stagnating without any action against relevant perpetrators and recovering losses caused to the state, department sources revealed.
Among these reports were findings on massive financial misappropriations and irregularities in recent mega transactions in the importation of essential commodities causing a loss of more than Rs.40 billion to government coffers, the sources said.
They noted that no action has been taken to punish corrupt officials involved in those wrongdoings and impose surcharges or for the recovery of losses incurred to state coffers.
This situation has worsened following the disbanding of the National Audit Service Commission first introduced under the 19th Amendment to the Constitution and functioned for five years from 2016-2020.
Although this commission lacked constitutional safeguards, it has some powers to take disciplinary action against corrupt officials.
Furthermore the problem was also due to the department’s lack of legal powers to enforce its recommendations, a high ranking official and leading member of the Sri Lanka Audit Service Association (SLASA), on condition of anonymity, told the Business Times.
Without the power to initiate any legal action, these reports are either sent to the back-burner or destroyed, he pointed out.
Those audit reports are scrutinised by the Parliamentary watchdog committees such as the Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) and the Committee on Public Accounts (COPA), but there was no follow up action afterwards, he complained.
The responsibility of COPE and COPA to make recommendations only after examining the audit reports and its implementation is vested in the Ministry Secretaries who are the Chief Accounting Officers.
Nothing can be expected from these officers in relation to follow up action of law enforcement and asset recovery on audit detection as they have to work in accordance with the whims and fancies of political authority, he added.
Therefore the need of the hour is to amend the existing archaic laws relating to the national audit service or to present a new audit bill in Parliament and enact it according necessary powers to the defunct Commission and the Auditor Generals’ Department to combat economic crimes, the SLASA has suggested.
Among the recent revelations of audit reports were the loss of over Rs. 15 billion to the state caused by allowing of a large stock of rice imported into the country in 2014 to perish at the Colombo Port; a massive loss of Rs. 14 billion from the recent sugar importation scam and the payment of US$ 6.5 million to a Chinese shipment of organic fertiliser.
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