The office of the Comptroller and Auditor General of Bangladesh (CAG) itself is involved in unacceptable corrupt practices, a Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) report revealed Thursday.
Such practices are galore despite the CAG's responsibility of ascertaining corruption in government offices, public bodies and statutory organisations.
The second report of the TIB on CAG also identified deficit in internal governance and external factors like political influence and financial control by the Finance Ministry which has made the constitutional body literally ineffective to perform its duties independently.
The CAG also suffers from manpower shortage, the report found.
CAG auditors take minimum Tk 10,000 and maximum Tk 0.5 million as bribes while conducting audit.
Moreover, six ministers, two state ministers, one parliamentary standing committee chairman and one central leader of a political party recommended appointment of one mid-level official in the CAG, the TIB report said.
The TIB presented the report on 'Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General of Bangladesh: Governance Challenges and Way Forward' at a press conference at the TIB office in the city.
Addressing the press conference, TIB executive director Dr Iftekharuzzaman said, "The CAG is plagued by two kinds of problems - internal and external."
Citing example of the incident of corruption in recruitment, he said there was not only written recommendation on one of the applicants' application by six ministers there was also pressure over phone and other ways to appoint that person in the CAG for which the TIB had to arrange for a press conference on the issue.
"The operational flexibility of the CAG is hampered as it faces operational hurdles like financial control. The influence of this and the deficit of internal governance have made corrupt practice in the institution unacceptable," he said.
The TIB called upon the government for enacting audit laws, providing complete autonomy to the CAG, filling up of vacancies and giving incentives to honest auditors.
"Bangladesh is a unique country where there is no audit law. Although there is a draft law, it has been abandoned for six years and there is hardly any step to enact it," said Mr Iftekharuzzaman, adding that the authorities create a confusing situation to control the CAG.
msshova@gmail.com
© 2026 - All Rights with The Financial Express
