Most part of the public expenditures remains un-audited due to shortage of manpower and logistics in the relevant agencies, thus, creating a large scope for financial irregularities.
Only 10 per cent of the total government expenditures come under the scanner of the office of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) and the remaining 90 per cent go un-audited, officials said.
Experts say no country audits the public expenditures in full, but the ratio in the case of Bangladesh should be higher for the sake of ensuring transparency and accountability in public spending.
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the 9th Parliament recommended the CAG office to increase the ratio of inspection as audit of only 10 per cent of government's annual expenditures did not reveal the actual situation with the public spending.
"Since the CAG office could unearth many big financial scams in the government offices by auditing only 10 per cent of the expenditures, wider auditing is likely to unearth many more such cases," said the 4th PAC report.
Speaking on the issue former PAC Chairman M A Mannan told the FE that it was very important to increase the ratio of the audit for the sake of transparency in government expenditures.
"Public spending should be transparent to ensure real development of a country, and we are trying to do that by strengthening the audit department, and expanding the range of audit," he said.
He said the CAG office is now more active and updated than before. However, he said, it is equally important to strengthen the department to raise its auditing capacity.
A director of the CAG office told the FE that it was very tough for them to expand their audit works with the existing manpower and other resources.
"The CAG office has 22,000 audit units across the country with only 3,000 officials to handle the same. So, it is not possible for us to expand the audit range with the present resources," he added.
The audit director said the CAG office sent a letter to the government two years back seeking more manpower. However, the government did not take any step in response to the letter.
"We will send another letter to the ministry of finance soon and hope that the government will take a time-befitting decision to increase the capacity of the CAG office," he said.
According to the CAG office, about 869,000 audit observations remained unsettled from 1971 to June 30, 2013, and the total amount of money involved in these unsettled audits is about Tk 5,309.89 billion.
The PAC of the 9th parliament settled a total of 4,113 audit objections, raised by the audit department, involving Tk 150.96 billion up to September last. As a result, the CAG office was able to recover Tk 13.96 billion and adjust Tk 25.66 billion, sources said.
The 8th parliament PAC recovered only Tk 877 million and adjusted Tk 1.61 billion while the 7th parliament PAC realised Tk 2.27 billion and adjusted Tk 9.29 billion.
Stressing the need for increasing the audit coverage, Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) Executive Director Dr Iftekharuzzaman said 10 per cent audit work could not help reveal the true extent of graft in the country.
"To get the actual result of the public expenditures, the ratio of audit should be increased," he said.
Dr Iftekharuzzaman informed that the CAG office was also interested to increase the ratio. However, it does not have the required resources to expand the ranges of audit.
"We sat with the CAG office recently and they expressed their interest to expand the audit ratio," he said.
The former PAC chairman said the CAG office initiates their audit through the sampling method which is very popular around the world.
"But, the range of sampling determines the result of it. So, if we can increase the audit ratio more than 20 per cent, it will yield better results," he said.
Mr Mannan also stressed the need for reducing the stack of unsettled audit files.
"In the last parliament, we tried to minimise the unsettled audits and the gap could be narrowed substantially," he said.
The PAC of the 9th parliament arranged 262 meetings from February 18, 2009 to September 19, 2013, which was up by 43 from the aggregate number of meetings held by all the previous PACs of the parliament (1st to 8th), Mr Mannan mentioned.