CCP, other regulatory bodies: AGP to check internal controls, audit systems

The Senate Standing Committee on Finance unanimously accepted all the recommendations of its sub-committee for assigning a new task to the Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) to check the internal controls and audit systems of the Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) and other regulatory bodies.
Senator Ahmed Ali, Chairman of the Committee while appreciating the work of the sub-committee said all the recommendations of the sub-committee have been unanimously adopted. Highlighting recommendations of the sub-committee to the Senate Standing Committee on Finance, Senator Haroon Akhtar said the sub-committee has conducted comprehensive investigation of the anonymous complaint against the CCP.
Based on the response of the Ministry of Finance and available information/data, it has been recommended that the AGP would carry out examination of the internal system of the CCP and identify weaknesses, if any, in the system and suggest remedial measures for improving the internal controls.
The recommendations have been prepared by Senator Ishaq Dar, who headed the sub-committee and its members include: Senators Haroon Akhtar, Safdar Abbasi and Professor Khurshid. Haroon further said the AGP would also conduct special audit of the tenure during the period of previous management of the CCP when financial irregularities were committed by two officers. The special audit should be conducted for 2008-09 and 2009-10 fiscal years.
In this connection, the sub-committee recommended that the Auditor General Office should review the existing internal controls and audit systems of the CCP. The sub-committee recommended that mere recovery from the concerned persons is not enough and penal proceedings should be initiated against such persons who caused loss to the national exchequer.
The subcommittee of the Senate Standing Committee on Finance further recommended strict rules for all regulatory bodies working under the administrative control of the Ministry of Finance to check internal control in these regulatory bodies. In case of anonyms email, the sub-committee further recommended that if there are some serious allegations or massive irregularities, the same should be thoroughly investigated. The anonymous emails should not be thrashed merely on the argument that they are anonyms. If the content of the email have some solid evidence of financial irregularity or other issue, the same could be silently investigated.