LAHORE: Auditor General of Pakistan Rana Asad Amin said on Monday the audit department wanted to ink a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to make audit more effective and ensure speedy legal action against erring officers/officials or institutions/department.

Talking to reporters at the launch ceremony of 20-day 97th International Intensive Training Programme in Performance Auditing at a local hotel, Amin saidworkload on the NAB and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) could be reduced substantially provided the audit department was given powers of arresting corrupt officers/officials and confiscation of plundered funds.

He said at present the department could not do more than prove documental misappropriation of funds or charges, and report to the relevant departmental secretaries as well as the Public Accounts Committee.

He said he visited Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh and met their respective chief ministers to discuss the undue delay of fiveyears in resolving the audit paras.

He said he suggested both to expedite processes by sorting out audit objections within a year, adding now Public Accounts Committees of both provinces were performing actively to execute pending work.

The auditor general said earlier the performance audit focused on small institutions such as schools and hospitals, but this time the department would be conducting a performance audit even at the ministry level following directions of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

He said the Auditor General of Pakistan would assess ministries and institutions as to what extentthey achieved their targets on variousfronts,addinganoverallaudit report would be compiled for onward discussion in the cabinet and parliament. Amin said now every ministry would have to perform well and yield positive results.

Earlier, speaking at the inauguration ceremony, Amin said the department had imparted performance audit training to 330 officers from 33 foreign countries since 1981. He said 22 audit officers from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal and Turkey would be part of the 97th training programme.