Auditors not adversaries, only give honest feedback: CAG Vinod Rai

Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) Vinod Rai has said auditors should not be seen as adversaries nor fault finding experts and only provide honest and objective feedback to the government without fear or favour.

"Audit is not an adversary. Neither is it merely a fault finding mechanism. We like to see ourselves as providing an objective and balanced feedback to the government without fear or favour," Rai said while addressing the Accountants General in the national capital.

His comments come in the backdrop of criticism of CAG by government on its reports on coal block allocation and 2G spectrum.

"We do not for a moment think that it is our business to tell the government what to do and what not to do. We tell the government, through our audit reports, whether departments were able to achieve what they set out to achieve," Rai said.



However, cash-based accounting system followed in India has ceased to reflect a true state of affairs of the governments as neither the assets nor the liabilities get properly reflected under the cash based system.

"Yet we have achieved very little progress towards an accrual based system which will provide a better idea of our assets and liabilities. We reiterate our commitment to continue our efforts towards implementation of accrual based system," he said.