Ambassador Yuxiao, told journalists immediately after the meeting with the Auditor General that he was impressed with the work of the General Auditing Commission (GAC).
“I read a whole lot of the enormous work of the Auditor General and the GAC as per the work they are doing for the Government and people of Liberia and I am very impressed that the issue of accountability and transparency is a high priority for this government”, Ambassador Yuxiao stressed.
The Ambassador said that as he can see the virtually dilapidated structure of the GAC coupled with the little money given to the GAC,GAC is ferociously working to produce quality audit reports without complaint.
Auditing, he said, is a good checking and deterrent system for any country that makes people to be accountable as to how they expend public money for public good. He said in China, Auditing is a very serious business and they take punitive action against anyone pubic officials that siphon government money.
He further said that tracking audit is the sole priority of the Chinese government.
“Here we audit from the beginning of the project starting from the design, to the manner and form the project begins, how it is done and why it was done that way,” the Ambassador averred.
Asked by journalists if there the Chinese Government would assist the GAC, he said there has been any request from AG Morlu on that and that the Chinese Government in fact only deals with country from a bilateral link, not individual ministries, agencies and autonomous agencies.
”It is the Liberian Government that will determine the areas of priorities and expend same from the fund they receive from us,” the Ambassador noted, adding, “if the government prioritizes auditing or reconstruction we will go for that.”
He then reaffirmed the Chinese Government support to the reconstruction and development of Liberia.
He further expounded that China has a distinct policy when it comes to economic assistance. He said instead of giving fund to multilateral organizations, it does so through the Ministry of Commerce of China that in turn recruit companies from within China through competitive bidding process to come as implementing partners of the Chinese government fund to the country seeking assistance .
Ambassador Yuxiao said, the competitive bidding process is properly monitored by the Chinese Government to ensure that it is transparent and that the project is appropriately carried out as per the project description and requirement.
For his part, AG Morlu welcomed the visit and then recounted GAC’s effort in assisting the government of Liberia in the fight against graft, fiscal irregularity, waste and abuse. He highlighted the number of audits produced thus far by the GAC and the bundle of assistance the EU plus other international partners and Supreme Auditing Institutions in Africa and beyond are rendering the GAC in terms of capacity building, logistical support, joint audits and secondment, etc.
The fight against corruption, system and control, the Auditor General emphasized is a long battle that can be minimized or won with moral clarity and germane purpose.
AG Morlu: At least we are getting somewhere step by step. We name people in our audit. We make them shame and we blame them in our audit reports. We limit the window of opportunity for public officials to out rightly steal public monies easily .Public officials are becoming to be afraid to arbitrary steal public money as where rampantly done because they know they will be audited.
Source: GAC
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