CAG not equipped to do performance audit, says Montek

Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia on Tuesday said government auditor Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) is not equipped to conduct performance audit of government programmes.

"..if they are going to do it (performance audit) then it is not the job of a bunch of chartered accountants. Then they (CAG) should hire more economists, engineers, social scientists," Ahluwalia told a television news channel.

"CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General) has a constitutional role, but they are normally supposed to deal with financial audits. They are, of course, trained chartered accountants or cost accountants," he said.

When was asked about the need of recently set up Independent Evaluation Office (IEO) in the Planning Commission for evaluating government programmes, he said: "Independent evaluation is not only about financial audit but a performance audit also. It is policy audit.

"In IEO they should actually be able to say this thing did exactly what a programme was meant to do but it never achieved the result (objectives of the programmes."

"You cannot have a constitutional body pronouncing on policy... If you want to get into policy, you are welcome. But please don't expect that you would be given any constitutional sanctity....," he added.

The CAG's reports on 2G spectrum, coal block allocations, Commonwealth Games and others issues had put the government in a tight spot.