A Good Governance Tool
MAKING CAG MORE EFFECTIVE
Audit Must be a Tool of Good Governance
K. P. SHASHIDHARAN*
Public audit is an inevitable constitutional mechanism for ensuring effective public financial management and good governance in a democracy.
In India, public audit must play a more predominant role in improving the three-tier governance in national, state, urban and local bodies. To achieve this objective, the following key points need to be kept in consideration.
First, the public audit institution must be enabled to discharge its constitutionally mandated responsibilities impartially, dispassionately with due diligence, without fear or favour. Second, the reports of the public audit institution must be relevant and time-bound. They should also meet quality specifications with valuable inputs for outcome-oriented corrective and preventive actions by the executive. Third, the major stakeholders, i.e., the legislature, executive, media, civil society and citizenry must find value for money in audit outputs for the expenditure incurred in the auditing process. This can be viewed as a return on investment or the tax payers’ money. Fourth, the report should offer workable solutions to the executive rather than establishing known facts culled out ingeniously from
