MARKET UPDATE
| CAG to begin KG-D6 audit on Wednesday Tue, 08 Jan 2013 00:43:03 +0530 |
| Business Standard Economy Policy News After protracted wrangling, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India ( CAG) will on Wednesday begin the second round of audit of Reliance Industries (RIL) spending on the flagging eastern offshore KG-D6 gas block. CAG officials are scheduled to reach RIL’s Navi Mumbai office on January 9 to begin the scrutiny, sources said. The audit was initially scheduled to begin on January 2, but was deferred to January 9. It had agreed in May to do a second round of audit of spending in the KG-D6 block for years 2008-09 to 2011-12, but that could not start due to differences over scope with RIL. RIL had insisted that the government can appoint any auditor, including CAG, to do a financial audit of its spending in the KG-D6 block in Bay of Bengal, but the production sharing contract didn’t allow a performance audit. CAG, on the other hand, believed its constitutional mandate does not provide for any restrictions on the nature of audit. Sources said the petroleum ministry had given in writing to RIL that CAG audit would be strictly as per Section 1.9 of the accounting procedure to the production sharing contract. Following this, RIL has agreed to cooperate and provide full access of its books of accounts to CAG. It has also dropped its contention that the report of CAG be not made public. |
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