No interference in defence audit, will maintain transparency: CAG

NEW DELHI: Comptroller and Auditor General Shashi Kant Sharma has said his stints with the defence ministry will not in any way compromise the national auditor’s independence in scrutinising multi-billion dollar deals inked under his watch.

In his first comments on the perceived “conflict of interest,” Sharma told HT his auditors had strict instructions to follow regulatory frameworks to ensure complete transparency in public spending, including in the defence sector that is battling corruption scandals. As director general (acquisition) and later defence secretary, Sharma steered a rash of big-ticket projects through different stages of procurement.

These include a $20-billion (`120,000 crore) contract to equip the air force with new fighter planes, a $4.1-billion (`24,600 crore) deal to buy 10 C-17 Globemaster-III heavy-lift aircraft and a $2.1 billion (`12,600 crore) contract for eight P-8I submarine hunter planes for the navy.

“There’s no question of anything being influenced, be it the defence sector or any other area. The bottom line is public funds have to be spent efficiently and there’s a multi-layered auditing process to analyse it,” said Sharma, who was defence secretary during from 2011-2013. If the purpose and gift of love is to awaken and reawaken what is dormant within us, then, when awake, it is our responsibility to remain awake and keep the gift alive. We do this by deep listening. Not toward a goal or even toward a noble ambition but as a way of life, staying devoted to listening to our heart — more than once, to everything.

The faster we spin or are spun, the more we are thrown to the top where we grow mental and heady. When we slow, or are slowed, things settle lower — in the heart, in the gut. As the Hawaiian elder Puanani Burgess says, “Your gut is where your best thinking happens, for it is here that we bring the mind, heart and emotions, intuitions and experiences

WE HAVE TO DISCERN: ARE WE SPEAKING HONESTLY OR JUST BARKING FROM OUR WALL INTO ALL WE ARE AFRAID OF?