April 17: The Parliamentary Hearings Committee has cleared the way for the appointment of Toyam Raya as the Auditor General.

Chairman of the Parliamentary Hearings Committee, Pashupati Shamsher Rana told reporters that his name was unanimously approved by the committee's meeting held on Tuesday.

A meeting of the Constitutional Council held on March 31 had decided to recommend Raya, who is the secretary of the National Statistics Office, for appointment to the post of Auditor General. There is a constitutional provision for the President to appoint the Auditor General upon the recommendation of the Council after approval by the Parliamentary Hearings Committee.

After becoming the Auditor General, the responsibility of auditing all the expenses of the government in the last fiscal year and the current fiscal year will fall on his shoulders. Some stakeholders have criticized his appointment to the post due to a conflict of interest. As the secretary also has to audit the work done by himself, there will be a conflict of interest, say Transparency International and other organizations involved in anti-corruption watch. Transparency International has warned that this could disrupt good governance.

However, the MPs ignored this argument and approved Raya's recommendation. The previous Auditor General Tankamani Sharma was also appointed to the post after resigning from the post of Secretary. Raya, who is considered to be close to the ruling CPN-UML, has been appointed for a 6-year term with just 5 months left for his retirement.

Presenting his plans in the parliamentary committee, Raya expressed his commitment to restructure the Auditor General's office according to the federal governance system.

He said that it is necessary to advance the organization of the Auditor General's office in accordance with the federal framework to make the work of audit easy, transparent and less expensive, so he will give this work as the first priority.

Raya said in the parliamentary committee, "I will proceed with consultation with experts while preparing the audit report."

The use of information technology in auditing, internal governance, development of professionalism and institutional coordination are also in his action plan. Raya has also planned to use artificial intelligence in the audit, to develop a system that can monitor the implementation status of the audit recommendations.