ISLAMABAD:The Federal cabinet and institutional reforms unit has approved the establishment of a dedicated Specialized Audit Unit (SAU) at Department of the Auditor-General of Pakistan (DAGP).
The establishing of dedicated Specialized Audit Unit (SAU) at DAGP will be a major milestone in public sector Auditing and public financial management in the country, said a press release issued here on Sunday.
The Initiation of recruitment on 10 sanctioned MP 1/ MP 2 posts in Auditor General of Pakistan as special audit unit.
The SAU is need of time, keeping in view constantly evolving audit subjects and changing governmental priorities.
The responsibility of providing technical and professional support for assistance and guidance in the identified areas to the Field Audit Offices of DAGP needs to be entrusted to the proposed Specialized Audit Unit.
The creation of SAU will also create a pool of Technical and subject matter/area experts having required competencies and skills for future utilization.
The SAU will emerge as a catalyst for strategic Management improvisation initiatives spearheading change management in SAI Pakistan.
It will serve as technical Area Expert hub for replenishing the requirements of subject matter and technical experts in the Field Audit Offices. Moreover, the SAI Pakistan will also be able to brace the daunting challenges posed by demanding domains of Forensic Auditing, IS Auditing, Citizens engagement Audits, SDGs Audit coverage, ACL adoption, Environment Audits, Cost and VFM audits etc. in emerging fields.
Accordingly, the SAI Pakistan deems it imperative to establish Specialized Audit Unit to be manned by Resident Experts in MP scales along with Short Term Experts / Consultants to be engaged on a need basis for specific audit assignment and for a fixed period of time.
Department of the Auditor-General of Pakistan (DAGP) is the Supreme Audit Institution (SAI) of the country which aims to improve economy, efficiency and effectiveness in governmental operations and ensures transparency and accountability in the public sector.
To fulfil this unique role and requirements of the public sector auditing, DAGP needs expertise of highly qualified, skilled and professional personnel. The Government of Pakistan intends to strengthen the DAGP in terms of specialization and improving upon business processes. In order to achieve this objective, the creation of a Specialized Audit Unit (SAU) is considered inevitable.
NEED ASSESSMENT:
DAGP conducts various types of audits, including Compliance with Authority Audit, Certification/Financial Audit, Performance Audit, Project Audit, Foreign Aided Projects (FAP) Audit, Audit of Public Debt, IT/IS Audit and Environmental Audit etc. The scope of these various types of Audits requires integrating various specialised skills including those of engineers, doctors, economists, statisticians, social sector experts, computer experts, and lawyers etc. This is extremely important for providing insight into the constantly evolving complex audit areas within the audit universe of DAGP.
The purpose of the establishment of SAU in the department is to put in place a specialized unit to cater the needs of Audit in specialized areas requiring subject matter expertise. The SAU will enable DAGP to hire Consultants/ Experts for providing assistance to Field Audit Offices concerned in conduct of specialized audits related to complex areas and subjects, whenever needed during the audit. For this purpose, a new Directorate of Specialized Audit, capable of hiring specialist assistance from market and placing them at the disposal of concerned FAO, is required to be created at the HQ level. Its main purpose would be to assist and coordinate the specialized audits, hiring, payment and monitoring of specialists for other FAOs. It shall be created by utilizing the available financial and administrative resources of DAGP.
The proposed Specialized Audit Unit (SAU) of the Department of the Auditor General of Pakistan is to be manned by experts who shall be individuals possessing the required knowledge and skills in the relevant area or topic of audit. As a matter of policy, the expert (s) shall be individual (s) possessing expertise in a field other than accounting or auditing, whose work in that field is used by the auditor to assist in obtaining sufficient and relevant audit evidence. The SAU experts will assist in planning, execution, report writing and identifying key risk areas. Where difficult or contentious matters arise, DAGP shall ensure that appropriate resources in shape of subject matter experts are available to deal with such matters.
There shall be two categories of the experts i.e. (a) Resident Experts (RE) and (b) Short Term Experts (STE).
The Resident Experts will be hired in MP scales for placement in SAU for a specified term. Initially DAGP has identified ten (10) specialized areas for hiring of Resident Experts based on the importance and increased requirement of experts in these specialized areas. In the first stage ten (10) MP-Scale posts (5 in MP-I and 5 in MP-II) are proposed to be sanctioned for DAGP to operationalize the Specialized Audit Unit.
The detailed TORs / Job description of the Resident Experts in all the 10 specialized areas/subjects is attached at Annex-I.
The Short Term Experts (STE) will be hired on case to case basis as per specific requirements on a fixed remuneration. The expenditure involved will be met out of the regular Budget of the DAGP under the relevant head.