Audit Authority Releases First Report After 9 Years

Written by DAP NEWS -- Saturday, 31 October 2009

(Posted by CAAI News Media)

The National Audit Authority (NAA) On Friday released its first report after 9 years. The Authority urged some Gover-nmental agencies to work more effectively and faster than before to better facilitate NAA work in future.

Uth Chhorn, NAA chiarman, told reporters at a press conference on audit report publication of public financial management that he admired the Government that provided the great achievement of the country and especially, the government sought national income more than the financial planning in each year since 2000.

The purpose of releasing the audit report will contribute the legislature and executive bodies in strengthening the financial management of country and boost the operation ties through pointing other weak points which implemented in the past years, He said, adding that We have to provide recommendation to governmental agencies to improve their work in future in objectives of public financial management more effectively.

“It is the first time of its history that national authority released the first report of public financial management of the country. But even though I am so regret that this report had slowly launched, we have still lack of experience and human resources, technical experts for our work,” he said.

He added that national Audit authority is an independent agency and it created since 2000. “We have checked the expenditure and income of the government in 2006. We noted that Cambodian macro economic at that time was stable and good image with economic growth achieved 10.8 per cent and it is higher than 6.1 per cent as planning schedule. Totally, Cambodian national treasury earned 3,397,010 million Riels (over 874 million US dollars) that equaled with 115 per cent of budget planning and the expenditure was 2,813,046 Riels (over 703 million US dollars). The amount of finance was great achievement of government that followed the second rectangular policy in poverty reduction and reform for the country,” he said. Within this great achievement, NAA also expressed dissatisfaction of some ministries and governmental agencies because they worked slowly. Since 2000, the council of ministers decided that ministry of agriculture, forestry, and fishery (MAFF) and ministry of economy and finance (MoEF)are key players to evaluate and setting up the price of renting economic concession land but until 2007, the evaluation and price limitation of those economic concession lands could not practice fully through that directives, the report from NAA said, adding that ministry of agriculture, forestry and fisheries on be half of government signed agreements with 70 companies from 1992 to 2006 with covering one million hectare of concession lands and most of those gareemnet have validity for over 70 years. Income from those lands could be exercised effectively, it said, adding that MAFF and MoEF show commitment to collect income from those renting lands.

The NAA also urged other ministries to list inventory for all state properties under their authorities to have effectiveness and clear for all especially for land properties and totally there were 150 cases of unused land did not pay tax for the government and MoEF need to collect it timely and NAA also urged to involved ministries to create land inventory for unused land in the country. It expressed that the goods smuggling has been still processed and it is the matter for collecting tax of the government, the report said, authorities did not crack down on time and sometimes authorities forced users to pay tax when the good already used. “We have been trying to implement our role with high responsibilities and we audited 459 public enterprises and other projects of government since 2001.”