New auditor general tasked with cleaning up audit office mess

ISLAMABAD: Maqbool Ahmed Gondal has stepped into the hot seat as Pakistan’s 22nd Auditor General, taking charge on Monday in a ceremony at the Supreme Court, and inheriting a credibility crisis that has left the country’s top audit office red-faced.

According to a report published by Dawn, the challenge for the new AGP is immediate and daunting. His office recently had to backtrack on a controversial audit report that cited an eye-popping Rs376 trillion in financial irregularities in the federal government’s accounts.

That figure, more than three times Pakistan’s entire gross domestic product (GDP), triggered disbelief, criticism and ridicule from both government officials and the public.

From trillions to billions

The original ‘Consolidated Audit Report of Federal Government for the Audit Year 2024-25’, released in August, alleged procurement-related irregularities worth Rs284 trillion, defective civil works amounting to Rs85.6 trillion, receivables of Rs2.5 trillion, and unresolved circular debt of Rs1.2 trillion.

However, after weeks of defending the report, the Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) office conceded that it was riddled with ‘typos’. The revised version, uploaded last week, now puts the figure at Rs9.769 trillion.

While still massive, this corrected amount is almost two-thirds of the federal budget for the current fiscal year. The revised report explains that these irregularities stretch across multiple years and include out-of-budget items such as circular debt, land disputes, and corporate accounts.

An official aware of the matter said the department had continued to defend the original figures because it became “a matter of credibility as well as ego”.

Experts call for perspective

Economist Dr Vaqar Ahmad from the Sustainable Development Policy Institute said the Rs376 trillion figure seemed to be an inflated aggregation of audit observations, not actual verified losses. He noted that the AGP audited only 1,362 formations involving Rs24.2 trillion in expenditure and Rs20.6 trillion in receipts, making the original claim far beyond the real audit scope.

He explained that procedural deviations are often labelled as irregularities, which multiplies the numbers on paper without necessarily indicating financial losses. Of the Rs5.58 trillion reported as recovered, he added, the amount was actually deposited in the national exchequer, while the rest were audit objections unlikely to translate into real recoveries.

A former provincial AGP said that audits in Pakistan often list multiple procedural lapses against a single project, inflating figures. Similarly, a senior Punjab government official said audits are typically driven by a mindset of piling up objections to pressurise departments rather than verifying actual budget expenditures.

Need for reforms

Housing and Works Division Secretary Hamed Yaqoob Sheikh said the AGP office must move beyond transaction-based audits and assess whether public spending delivers value for money, as done in developed countries.

For now, Gondal’s tenure begins with the urgent task of restoring public trust in Pakistan’s top audit institution.