Auditor General, Deodat Sharma submitted earlier today, his report to House Speaker, Manzoor Nadir on the audit of Ministries and Departments for the fiscal year ended 2019. The AG was keen to note that as a result of the pandemic affecting the country and the related measures under the public health ordinance which included rotation of workers and travel restrictions, access to regions One, Seven, Eight,and Nine could not have been undertaken. Sharma said too that physical verification of projects in these regions was also hampered resulting in severe limitation of the results.
In addition, the AG said that there were limitation in audits conducted at ministries and departments due to minimal staff on duty, the need to prioritize their restricted hours of work,and limited physical interactions as mandated by the stipulated COVID-19 protocols which resulted in access to records and documents for audits being inadequate.
In spite of these challenges, he said that the Audit Office was able to complete a substantial amount of work in order to submit its report.
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