Girish Chandra Murmu, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India, has been elected as the External Auditor of Inter Parliamentary Union (IPU) Geneva for a three-year term.
GC Murmu will be taking charge of the prestigious position from the Supreme Audit Institution of Switzerland. He was elected during an election at the virtual meeting of IPU's 284th session. The election results were conveyed by Martin Chungong, Secretary-General of the IPU.
The Inter Parliamentary Union comprises national parliaments of 179 countries as members and 13 Associate Members. It has a permanent observer status at the United Nations General Assembly.
Key Highlights
•The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India has been the external auditor of various international organisations including the World Health Organization and the Food & Agriculture Organization.
•The CAG of India has earlier been named on the UN Board of Auditors from 1993 to 1999 and recently from 2014 to 2020.
•He has also been the External Auditor of World Food Programme, International Atomic Energy Agency, International Organization for Migration, World Intellectual Property Organization, Organization for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, UN World Tourism Organization and International Maritime Organization in the recent past.
Significance |
| By being elected as the External Auditor of Inter Parliamentary Union, the CAG would not only add value to the operations of IPU, but his own officers would also be further exposed to the best international auditing and accounting practices, which would help in the enhancement of their professional skills. This would also result in high quality of auditing and accounting and would promote accountability, transparency and good governance in India. |
Key Role
The auditors of the CAG of India would assist the IPU in bringing greater efficiency, transparency, effectiveness and economy in its operations by focusing on key risks within the organisation. These auditors bring with them their vast experience of auditing for the UN and its related agencies and other international organisations.
What is IPU?
•The Inter Parliamentary Union is global inter-parliamentary, which was established by France and the UK in 1889.
•The organisation is the first permanent forum for political multilateral negotiations.
•The organisation was initially for individual parliamentarians but now it has become an international organisation of the parliaments of sovereign states.
•The IPU empowers parliaments and parliamentarians to promote peace, democracy and sustainable development across the world.
Background
One of the key pillars of India's democracy is the institution of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India. It is also one of the largest Supreme Audit Institutions in the world.
The CAG of India chairs the Knowledge Sharing Committee, which is one of the four main committees of International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI).
He is also a member of a number of other standards setting committees/sub-committees and has a place on the Governing Board of INTOSAI.
He is also the Chair of the UN Panel of External Auditors and the Asian Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (ASOSAI).
Hence, the CAG is closely associated with activities in establishing standards, best practices and guidance in different areas of audit for use by the SAI community at large.
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