COLOMBO: Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa on Sunday stressed that the proposed 20th Amendment to the Constitution is aimed at replacing the changes made to the provisions relating to the Auditor General by the 19th Amendment.
The Prime Minister while refuting the Opposition’s allegations that the proposed Amendment is seeking to remove the Presidential Secretariat and the Office of the Prime Minister from the purview of the Auditor General said these two institutes have been under the purview of the Auditor General from the very inception of the 1978 Constitution. “The phrase “All departments of government “ in Article 154(1) of the pre – 19th Amendment Constitution brought the Presidential Secretariat and the Prime Minister’s Office under the purview of the Auditor General”, a statement issued by the Prime Minister said.
He added that the Opposition has been unhesitatingly uttering every lie that comes to mind with regard to this matter because of the confidence that most people would not be familiar with these obscure provisions of the Constitution.
“All that the 20th Amendment seeks to do is to replace the changes made to the provisions relating to the Auditor General by the 19th Amendment with the provisions that existed before the 19th Amendment”.
The full statement: The Opposition has been trying to propagate the idea that the Auditor General’s powers would be reduced by the proposed 20th Amendment. It’s seldom that the Constitutional provisions regarding the Auditor General come to the attention of the public. This has made it easier for the opposition to propagate various falsehoods in this connection.
One of the false claims being made is that the 19th Amendment set up an Audit Commission and that the 20th Amendment seeks to abolish it. What the 19th Amendment made provision for was not an Audit Commission but only an Audit Service Commission. The Audit Service Commission does not carry out any auditing functions. It handles matters like the appointment, promotion, transfer and disciplinary control of members of the State Audit Service. Usually such matters pertaining to government servants are dealt with by the Public Service Commission.
All that the creation of the Audit Service Commission achieved was to set up yet another Commission to do the work that was being done by the Public Service Commission.
Another false claim being made by the opposition is that the 20th Amendment seeks to remove the Presidential Secretariat and the Office of the Prime Minister from the purview of the Auditor General. From the very inception of the 1978 Constitution, the Presidential Secretariat and the Prime Minister’s Office have been under the purview of the Auditor General. The phrase “all departments of government” in Article 154(1) of the pre-19th Amendment Constitution brought the Presidential Secretariat and the Prime Minister’s Office under the purview of the Auditor General. These institutions were always listed as government departments in the Government Financial Regulations. Quite apart from these two institutions, even the Office of Former Presidents is listed as a separate government department and all these institutions were always audited by the Auditor General.
The inclusion of the Presidential Secretariat and the Office of the Prime Minister by name in Article 154(1), by the 19th Amendment did not achieve anything new. Even though they may have not been specifically mentioned by name, from the very inception of the 1978 Constitution, the Presidential Secretariat and Prime Ministers Office had always been under the purview of the Auditor General. Even after the 20th Amendment reinstates the old article 154(1) which existed from the inception of the 1978 Constitution, in place of the so called ‘changes’ made by the 19th Amendment, the Presidential Secretariat and the Prime Minister’s Office will continue to remain within the purview of the Auditor General. Over the past decades, it’s the Auditor General who audited the Presidential Secretariat and the Prime Minister’s Office and not some private audit firm.
