Auditor General’s Organization

Introduction

Article 170 (2) of the Constitution of Pakistan requires that the AGP shall conduct audit of the accounts of the Federal Government’s ministries, divisions, attached departments, subordinate offices, and autonomous / semi-autonomous organizations and of the accounts of the Provincial departments, organizations and their subsidiaries, Accounts of the District/Local Governments and its organizations, bodies, authorities’ subordinate offices subsidiaries etc. Office of the Auditor General of Pakistan (OAGP) assists the AGP for executing this Constitutional Function.

At the apex of the OAGP is the Auditor General of Pakistan who has a fixed term of four years, which is non-extendable. The AGP is assisted by two Additional Auditors Generals who oversee the Audit execution and other Wings. There are ten wings in OAGP. Each wing is headed by Deputy Auditor General reporting to Additional Auditor General I & II. The exception to this principle is Deputy Auditor General (Quality Assurance Inspection and Monitoring), whose Wing carries out the inspection of all FAOs and Wings on behalf of the Auditor-General of Pakistan as internal Audit and Quality Control Function and directly reports to AGP. The fundamental role of this Wing is to report to the Auditor General on the integrity and compliance aspects of our operations.

There are 30 Field Audit Offices (FAOs) with clearly delineated audit jurisdiction of 47,264 entities and formations distributed across Pakistan. FAOs conduct audit according to audit plan approved by Auditor General of Pakistan. FAOs also conduct audit of foreign aided projects funded by the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, and other bilateral and multilateral donors. These FAOs are organized under six Audit Wings. Each Audit Wing is headed by Deputy Auditor-General who report to the Additional Auditor-General. The Deputy Auditor General directs controls and coordinates the work of the field offices under his/her wing. There is also separate wing for Policy Function namely Deputy Auditor General (Policy) and Special Sectors Audit Wing dealing with Donor funded project.

Personnel

The number of core professional officers of the AGP, also known as the Pakistan Audit and Account Service (PA&AS) is 606, working against the sanction strength of 838. The PA&AS provides frontline, middle and top leadership to the AGP in its audit operations, government accounting, and other financial management activities at federal, provincial and district levels.  Currently 267 Officer of PA&AS serve as auditors and 198 performs accounting function under Controller General of Accounts. The Officers of PA&AS are appointed on the basis of a national competitive examination namely- CSS Examination (Central Superior Service) conducted by Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC). The selected officers undergo a rigorous pre-service training program of 18 months. The number of support staff in the audit offices is 3365 working against sanctioned strength of 4829.

The AGP is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of immutable traits such as minority, sex and disability. It ensures fairness in the employment process and also equal treatment and respect during employment, especially for women. This is evident from the significant number of women working in the department.