Beginning next month, the Royal Audit Authority (RAA) will hold contractors and consultants accountable for all audit lapses. The RAA signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Construction Development Board (CDB) to this effect today.
The move comes after various forums raised the need to fix accountability against contractors and consultants on audit issues. “We never used to include or take into account the contractors, private people and consultants,” Deputy Auditor General Chimi Dorji said.
“Now, with this MoU, we want to bring them into the accountability framework. It’s not to harass them but to inform them they have audit issues.”
The initiative is expected to enhance sense of accountability, ownership and responsibility both in the public and private sector. This, in turn, is expected to contribute towards improvement of quality of construction works.
The RAA has developed guidelines on fixing accountability on contractors and consultants based on a series suggestions and feedbacks received from various stakeholders.
The guidelines come into effect from July 1.
According to RAA, the contractors shall be held accountable for audit observations pertaining to irregularities including excess payments, inadmissible payments, defective and substandard executions of works.
Similarly, the consultants would be held accountable for excess, double and inadmissible payments, ineffective supervision of works and faulty designs.
They would also be held accountable for any violation of contract documents.
Also, the contractors and consultants will not be able to renew their registration certificate if they have unresolved audit observations.
The CDB will include a mandatory requirement to check whether the contractor or consultant applying for renewal of registration certificate has any unresolved audit observations.
Currently, there are over 4,000 contractors and consultants in the country.
