SCO auditors target corruption

China, Russia, and other participants in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) have reached consensus that their auditing institutions should play an active role in fighting corruption.

"Fighting corruption has become our (auditing institutions') common responsibility," Liu Jiayi, auditor general of the National Audit Office, said at a two-day meeting in Shanghai that ended on Tuesday.

Recapping the second meeting of the Heads of Supreme Audit Institutions of the Participating States of the SCO, Liu said the understanding was one of the five agreements reached at the meeting.

According to Liu, the audit institutions function as an 'immune system' in their national economies. They prevent and disclose irregularities, but also safeguard the legitimacy and effectiveness of public budgets, public resources, and the allocation, management, and use of public assets, he said.

"They are very important in driving forward the development of clean government and legal and political systems," Liu said.

Delegations of other states agreed that the audit institutions should assume the task of cracking down on corruption while striving to maintain economic security and stability through auditing.

Sergey Stepashin, Liu's counterpart from the Russian Federation, added that working with judicial authorities in fighting corruption is one of his organization's "main tasks".

"Due to our knowledge in the sphere of budget control, auditing, banking and finance … we can take certain measures to prevent corruption," he told China Daily through a translator.

Stepashin added that the Russian president has made him a member of the 16-member presidential council on fighting corruption.

Meanwhile, the auditor general of Pakistan and deputy auditor general of India - both observer states of the SCO - expressed their interest in sharing and learning corruption-fighting practices from the meeting.

"Each state has different history and customs ... So the idea is to learn from the practices adopted by various countries in fighting corruption and evolving good practices," said the Indian delegation head, Arvind Awasthi.

"We wish to share experiences particularly on how to practice and implement laws relating to anti-corruption... to safeguard the public exchequer, save money, and see the money is spent on the right purposes," said Akhtar Rana, the auditor-general of Pakistan,.

The ten participating states also agreed that strengthening international audit cooperation is an urgent task.

The members of the SCO - China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan - will participate, on voluntary basis, in a parallel audit of international trade over the next year.