The Hindu Business Line : CAG non-committal on issue of auditing NGO accounts

PLAYING safe over the ticklish issue of auditing books of accounts of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) receiving Central aid, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), Mr V.N. Kaul, has said that it was for the Government to take a call on whether the services of CAG should be utilised for this purpose or not.

"Government has to make up its mind on this issue. There is no request so far from the Government. There is also no intent on my part to propose to the Government (need for CAG audit)," Mr Kaul said.

He however made it clear that CAG was not averse to devising a broad system that would help ascertain whether the Central grants to NGOs have been used for the purpose for which they were sanctioned.

The issue of funding of NGOs and the aspect of external audit came up for discussion at the recently concluded biennial conference of the States Accountants General held in the capital. There have been demands that NGOs getting Government grants should come under statutory audit and that the books of accounts of such voluntary organisations should be completely opened up to CAG audit. The Lok Sabha Speaker, Mr Somnath Chatterjee, too had supported CAG audit for those NGOs that receive Central aid. It has been estimated that there are more than eight lakh NGOs functioning in the country.

Meanwhile, the State Accountants General have in principle agreed to the system of having "pre-determined stages of audit in long-term projects".

This follows the recent suggestion from the President, Mr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, that the audit teams could work with Programme Chiefs or executives of national programmes or projects from the inception and participate in the study of the Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) of the project.

Noting that there may be ten to fifteen critical paths for say a ten year programme, the First Citizen had suggested that the critical paths in the project PERT would be the CAGs audit area and points.

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