After months of haggling, National Audit Bill debate on Thursday

The National Audit Bill will be taken up for debate in Parliament on Thursday, following months of haggling.

The debate over the Bill, presented in Parliament in April and scheduled for debate in May, was postponed over continued disagreement between Sri Lanka Administrative Service ( SLAS) officials and the Auditor General ( AG), with the former arguing that the Bill vests too much power with the AG.

The draft of the Bill was amended 22 times, due to objections by SLAS officials and, for almost 4 years, the Bill went to and fro between the Legal Draftsman’s Department and the Cabinet. The final version of the Bill was published in the gazette in March this year. The Bill has been diluted from the initial draft, with the powers the AG sought to recover monies lost to the State due to inefficiency, misappropriation, negligence or corruption by officials, by imposing a surcharge, not granted by this Bill.

Instead, the power to impose a surcharge to recover such losses has been vested with the Chief Accounting Officer (CAO) of the relevant government institution.

The CAOs (Ministry Secretaries) have been granted the authority to impose the surcharge, while in cases where the CAO has caused or, has been involved in causing any deficiency or, loss due to fraud, negligence, misappropriation or corruption in a transaction made contrary to any written law, the power to impose the surcharge has beeen vested with the President, who is also the appointing authority.

The National Audit Bill provides for the powers, duties and functions of the Audit Service Commission, the establishment of the office of the National Audit Office and the Sri Lanka State Audit Service and specifies the role of the Auditor General over public finance.

The surcharge provisions will be set in motion after the Audit Service Commission reports to the CAO the amount of any deficiency or, loss in any transaction, if it has reasonable grounds to believe that such transaction has been made contrary to any written law, and has caused financial losses. The CAO can then impose the surcharge on the value of the deficiency or, loss, in every transaction.

The surcharge can be imposed against any person who is responsible for the deficiency or, loss, either jointly or, individually, followed by a formal disciplinary action by the Disciplinary Authority or, a judicial process.

The Bill also provides for the setting up of a Surcharge Appeal Committee empowered to allow the appeal, amend, alter or, vary the decision or, disallow the appeal.

Once the law is enacted, every public corporation or, company in which the Government or a public corporation or, a local authority holds 50% or more of the Shares, will be required to include in its annual report the report presented by the Auditor General to the Chairman of such an institution, the performance report for the relevant year, annual audited financial statements, as well as a future projection report, based on s u s t a i n abl e Development, which may include details of activities to safeguard the environment, and mitigate any negative impact on the environment and, where necessary, include environment and disaster impact assessment analyses.

The institutions which will come under the AG's scrutiny will include all Ministries, Provincial Councils, public corporations, Commissions constituted under the Constitution or, Special Presidential Commissions of Inquiry, the Presidential Secretariat, the Office of the Secretary General of Parliament or, a company registered or, deemed to be registered under the Companies Act, in which the Government or, a public corporation or, a local authority, holds 50% or more of the Shares.