A brief look at Nepali peoples’ perception of the Office of the Auditor General and its annual reports. The Office of the Auditor General (OAG) can and should play the role of watchdog to control irregularities in the government entities. The OAG should make its auditing system more effective so that it can reveal all malpractices in the government agencies. Its reports should be available widely and understandable by a layman.

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Auditor General’s Report:
A Mere Formality or an Effort to Maintain Accountability?
A brief look at Nepali peoples’ perception of the Office of the Auditor General and its annual
reports.
The Office of the Auditor General (OAG) can and should play the role of watchdog to control irregularities in
the government entities. The OAG should make its auditing system more effective so that it can reveal all
malpractices in the government agencies. Its reports should be available widely and understandable by a
layman.
By Siromani Dhungana*
The Office of the Auditor General in Nepal states is vision as the following: “An
Independent, efficient and effective audit institution to promote good governance.”
Similarly, its mission is to “provide quality audit service to the nation for the efficient
management of public resources.”
Efficient management of public resources, however, has always been in question.
Government should respond to the findings and recommendations of auditor general but
that is not happening. The Auditor-General in Nepal is the auditor of more than four
thousand public entities, including government departments, local authorities and their
subsidiaries, security forces, licensing trusts, community boards and others. Recently, the
OAG submitted its 50th annual report. The office claims that the report covers number of
areas of audit concerns in the management of public funds.
The State of Public Sector Accountability
The overall accountability performance of the government entities is poor and
disappointing in Nepal. This needs to be improved significantly to allow the public to hold
public entities accountable for use of public money, and for the effectiveness of their
service delivery.
Today, many Nepalis simply do not believe on the expenditure detail made public by the
government entities because they believe (and rightly so) corruption has been a part of
the system and such system highly encourages expenses to be inflated.
AG’s Report: Nothing More than a Formality
The OAG released its 50th annual report in April but the report hasn’t attracted much
interest from general public.

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Its contents are hardly reported. Even if some media report it the general public is not
very eager to find more, says Kathmandu-based researcher Anirudra Neupane.
Low Awareness about Audit Report
Audit report is a public document. The government should ensure massive circulation of
the audit report, Neupane says. But the OAG does nothing to make the report available to
the wider mass.
I think, the office should publish its report in simplified form. So far, it has been publishing
a single report including all its observation within the same book. The office should start
the new practice of publishing district-wise reports. If a person from Humla wants to
know the public expenditure by the government entities in his/her district, the person
should be able to read Humla-only report, and they shouldn’t be burdened with the whole
report.
Vouching & Verification
Our entire auditing system is mostly formal and inefficient. Generally, OAG carries out
auditing based on vouchers received by the office from various government entities.
Generally, vouching and verification are popular term in auditing process. Vouching is the
process of recognizing obligation and authorizing cash disbursements. Auditors tallies
vouchers in the auditing process.
Verification, however, is the most important step in the audit process. After receiving
vouchers, auditors are required to ensure that whether the facts stated in the vouchers
are correct or not. Verification process involves reviewing, inspecting and checking of the
vouchers to ensure that the documents conform to specific requirements. For instance, if
any government entity says it spent Rs 1 billion in road construction then it should also be
the responsibility of the OAG to at least to be sure that minimum quality standard has
been followed on constructing the road.
Reveal Individual Audit Report
According to the OAG, the audit observations and findings reported were based on audit
examination of the financial statements and accounts of a total of 4,802 government
bodies including constitutional Bodies, Supreme Court, Legislature-Parliament, Ministries,
Nepal Army, Armed Police Force, Nepal Police, Government fully-owned Enterprises,
District Development Committees, Board, Trust, and Universities.

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The report has yet to include individual audit report, i.e., detailed expenditure by
individual public entity and the amount of the arrears. Individual audit report will help
general public to understand the performance of the government entity of their concern.
Arrear-focused Report
Currently, OAG is focused on arrears. “Report of the OAG is more focused on expenditure
of public money by government entities but has given very nominal concern to the actual
expenditure and its effectiveness,” Neupane said. Participatory approach has been
completely neglected in the financial audit and limited numbers of performance audit are
also not considering the response of larger beneficiaries.
The main purpose of performance audit is to provide public accountability for the
responsible use of public resources and regulatory powers, he adds.
Performance Audit
Financial audit is not sufficient to ensure accountability. It is often blamed that many
projects complete on the paper but not in the real sense in the country. So, the Auditor-
General Office should start performance audit system to ensure that the targets are met in
real life. Government performance auditing focuses on improving how governments
provide programs and services.
Performance audits incorporate an evaluation of concerned projects to examine the
project execution against the criteria given to the concerned government agency. Bill tally
and inspection of voucher is not sufficient to track the existing rampant corruption in the
country.
Reform the System of Audit Plan
The primary duty of the Office of the Auditor General is to play the role of public
watchdog in the realm of public finance effectively. More interaction with public during
the audit process is a must to ensure effectiveness of the audit. Formality in the releasing
of audit report cannot ensure the accountability in the government entities and
transparency in expenditure.
(*Kathmandu-based economic journalist, researcher and media academic, Siromani Dhungana is a young
and prominent media scholar in Nepal. He is also a lecturer of Journalism and Mass Communication (JMC) at
Tribhuvan University. He has been appointed by the Ministry of Education’s Curriculum Development Center
to revise the journalism syllabus for grade nine and ten as well as to rewrite journalism textbooks for the
secondary level. He has also received Narayan Shanti Mishra Gold Medal for being faculty topper in JMC from
Tribhuvan University in 2009 batch. He can be contacted at meshiromani@gmail.com or
siromanidhungana@gmail.com. Dhungana is also an editor of Nepal’s popular blog site: www.blog.com.np )