Enhancing cooperation and professional training.
The National Audit Office (NAO) and the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of the Republic of India signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to enhance cooperation, strengthen audit activities, exchange expertise and technical knowledge, and develop the professional skills of their staff.
Additionally, the MoU aims to coordinate efforts in the meetings with regional and international Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) and facilitate the provision of training opportunities for NAO staff in programs conducted by the training institutions of the CAG.
The MoU was signed by H.E. Shaikh Ahmed bin Mohamed Al Khalifa, Auditor General of the NAO, and Shri Girish Chandra Murmu, Comptroller and Auditor General of the Republic of India, who is visiting the Kingdom of Bahrain with his delegation from the CAG of India.
It is noteworthy that the CAG has an international standing in the audit community having chaired the UN Board of Auditors and the UN panel of External Auditors and served as a member in the UN Board of Auditors and as external auditor to various UN bodies and agencies.
Furthermore, the CAG is the Chair of the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI) Knowledge Sharing Committee and of the INTOSAI Compliance Audit Subcommittee under the INTOSAI’s Professional Standards Committee (PSC).
The CAG was recently elected as the Chairman of the Asian Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (ASOSAI) from 2024-2027. It will host the 16th ASOSAI Assembly in New Delhi in September 2024.
Several international training institutions were set up under the aegis of the CAG such as the International Centre for Information Systems and Audit Institute (iCISA which deals in capacity building of auditors around the world in areas related to Information Systems (IS) Audit and Data Analytics, and the International Centre for Environmental Audit and Sustainable Development (iCED) which is dedicated to capacity building and knowledge sharing in the field of environment audit.
The CAG has MoUs with 23 SAIs around the world.
It is worth to mention that the Republic of India held the presidency of the Group of Twenty (G20) during the period from 1st December 2022 to 30th November 2023.
The signing of the MoU was attended by H.E. Shaikh Abdulla bin Khalid Alkhalifa, Deputy Auditor General - Administrative Audit at the NAO, H.E. the Ambassador of the Republic of India to the Kingdom of Bahrain, Vinod Kurian Jacob, and members of the Indian delegation from the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General of the Republic of India visiting the Kingdom.
