CAG pushed for accountability

IN a bid to promote transparency and accountability in the management of public resources, the National Audit Office (NAO) has called upon its stakeholders to put forward recommendations regarding their expectations in the financial year 2016/17 to 2020/21 strategic plan.

The Deputy Auditor General in the CAG's office, Mr Jasper Mero, made the call in Dar es Salaam during a stakeholders’ analysis workshop.

Mr Mero said the office welcomes views from its stakeholders including Members of Parliament, ministries, government departments and institutions, local government authorities, development partners, public parastatals, government institutions, the media and members of the society generally in recognizing the importance of the exercise.

“Your recommendations are very important in unveiling new goals to be incorporated in the next strategic plan,” said Mr Mero. He stressed on the need for focused strategic planning in order to improve efficiency and increase the performance of the office in fulfilling its goals and public expectations.

The Head of the Planning Unit at NAO, Mr Malima Nkilijiwando, pointed out that the current plan, which is to end in June next year, has been successful, a situation that has prompted the unveiling of preparations for a new strategic plan. “Most of the envisaged objectives have been achieved through reforms in adopting the use of computers, unlike the old days when our auditors used to make ticks to enter data,” he explained.

He noted that the office has obtained up to 700 computers from the former 300 computers and 80 per cent of the auditors use NAO buildings. Mr Nkilijiwando declared that despite the successful work in inspecting all the public offices there were challenges in the actual number in the organizations because the CAG has a different number from the one obtained by the registrar of companies.

"Five to eight financial reports have been released each year by the CAG and last year a forensic report was issued by the office for the first time," pointed out Nkilijiwando.