KARACHI, Oct 11: The Directorate General Audit and Evaluation Revenue Receipts will assist the government in increasing revenue and identifying flaws and loopholes to plug leakages.

This was stated by the Director General, Audit and Evaluation (South) Revenue Receipts, SM Najmul Arfin, at the inauguration of 15th annual workshop held at the NIPA auditorium here on Monday.

He said the directorate had already begun audit of receipts by district governments all over the country from June this year. "We are guiding them to prepare accounts for their receipts to improve collection system by removing the flaws and plugging leakages," Mr Arfin said.

He said the purpose of the workshop was to acquaint the revenue auditors with the changes made in the current year's budget to enable them to conduct audit accordingly and point out inconsistencies in the accounts of revenue receipts of federal, provincial and district governments.

Earlier, Additional Auditor General of Pakistan Shahzado Shaikh said the audit was a key element of good governance. He stressed upon the need for strengthening internal audit in the CBR.

He said the revenue audit had helped tax collection departments in the heads of customs, sales tax and central excise duty by pinpointing the loopholes, lacunae and shortcomings in tax laws. He congratulated the Revenue Audit Wing for recovering Rs3.298 billion last year.

Deputy Auditor General Revenue Ms Rukhsana Jabbar Memon called upon the trainees to take full advantage of the workshop. She emphasized on the need for a working relationship between auditors of the CBR and the Revenue Receipt Audit to identify the escaped revenues. She said that an amount of Rs3.298 billion was recovered during 2003-04 at the instance of the audit department. The cost benefit ratio was 1:60.