WITH the audit reports for the financial years 2009-10 and 2010-11 laid before parliament last Friday, the painstaking, and painful, task of discovering the many billions of rupees of public funds that have been misappropriated, mishandled or spirited away is set to begin in the Public Accounts Committee of the National Assembly. But a set of factors, old and new, may set to conspire against the public ever finding out the extent of corruption and incompetence in public accounts and seeing officials responsible for wrongdoing punished. For one, the audit reports were presented in parliament at a time that the country has an acting auditor general, the last permanent auditor general, Tanvir Ali Agha, being asked to leave office several months before he was set to compulsorily retire.

The government’s stance was that parliament having reduced the term of the auditor general from five years to four via the 18th Amendment, Mr Agha was required to step down earlier this month after having completed four years in office. Others suggest that because Mr Agha took his oath of office — the Auditor General of Pakistan is a constitutional position — before the 18th Amendment, the four-year term limit did not apply to him and he could have continued in office till his 65th birthday later this year. The real reason for Mr Agha’s early departure, many believe, is that the government is keen to have a better friend of the government in the AGP seat when the AGP appears before the PAC in the months ahead.

Yet, the issue of auditing and accountability goes far beyond Mr Agha’s fate or indeed the next AGP. With no Audit Act legislating the process of auditing and stipulating what actions can be taken when wrongdoing is identified, the state continues to rely on an inadequate presidential ordinance. When the PAC was handed over with much fanfare to the Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, critics pointed out that the best of intentions — or even a tenacious opposition leader determined to embarrass the government — would not be enough because the PAC is largely a toothless organisation. The PAC claims to have recovered tens of billions of rupees over the last couple of years, but who has been punished for financial malfeasance and misfeasance? Recommendations to take action simply languish with the heads of various departments. This year, too, the auditing of national accounts may be more theatre than substance.