The Vice President, Shri Jagdeep Dhankhar today described accountability and transparency as twins that help to sustain our democratic progress. He said that accountability in public service delivery is quintessential to good governance to ensure that benefits trickle to the last rows.
Addressing a gathering after inaugurating 2nd Audit Diwas celebrations at CAG office in New Delhi today, he highlighted that CAG has a pivotal role in ensuring these values; corruption and inefficiency would creep into the system, otherwise.
Describing audit as a powerful and inescapable tool of good governance, Shri Dhankhar cautioned that the absence of audit or inefficient audit would lead to system degeneration. He also called for increased focus by CAG on the instances of utility certificates involving massive public funds not being imparted for long by governmental entities.
Noting that CAG of India has been the External Auditor of various United Nations (UN) organizations over the years, Shri Dhankhar praised CAG for establishing a reputation for itself as a robust auditing organisation with global best practices.
He expressed confidence that with the enhanced pro-active stance of the CAG, there is bound to be improved efficiency and monitoring and reach of government schemes. “Timely detection of fiscal misdemeanours and effective consequential correction mechanisms are peremptory CAG obligations,” he added.
Calling for continually enhancing credible systems to tackle the challenges before us, the Vice President highlighted that engaging in self-audit would be rewarding.On this occasion, the Vice President also felicitated the winners of the National Online Essay Writing Competition - 2022 organized by CAG as part of its 2nd Audit Diwas celebrations.
Appreciating the initiative, he hoped that the august institution would continue to find ways to involve the public at the grassroots in its impact assessment process and act as crusader against corruption and fiscal inefficiency.The Comptroller and Auditor General of India, Shri Girish Chandra Murmu, Deputy Comptroller and Auditor General, Ms Parveen Mehta, officers of the Indian Audit and Accounts Department and other dignitaries were present.