Auditor General's Office has proposed an MVR 123 million budget for 2024 to the parliament.
At the parliament's finance committee meeting on Monday, October 16, Auditor General's Office shared details about the office's budget.
The office showcased a presentation of budget components which forecast an annual expenditure of MVR 82 million in 2024, out of which MVR 56 million will be spent on employee salaries.
The office increased its budget for the upcoming year owing to the decision to hire seven new employees, and to introduce a dependent allowance. The office proposed an increase of an additional MVR 11 million to facilitate this allowance.
Auditor General Hussain Niyazi said the decision to increment employee salaries has not been officially requested to the Ministry of Finance.
He said the request was postponed owing to the increase of political activities in the last few weeks. Niyazi added that the office has now expedited its efforts to submit the budget to the ministry after parliament approval for the proposed increments.
"Our salaries originally were fixed back when Ibrahim Naeem was appointed as the Auditor General in 2008. Since then, we have not observed remuneration increments except for some minor increases between MVR 1,500 to MVR 2,000," Niyazi added.
He further argued that the low remuneration mainly attributed to the high employee turnover. He added that directors of the office receive a remuneration of MVR 30,000 while they are required to complete between 50 to 60 audits per month.
"But the minimum remuneration for internal auditors in SOEs start at MVR 45,000. Owing to this vast difference, we have lost a lot of competent members," he said.
Niyazi said the newly proposed allowance will increase remuneration of Auditor General's Office employees on par with the average renumeration of professional accountants or auditors in the private sector.
In 2023, the office proposed a budget of MVR 93 million, but owing to expenses in shifting the office the budget increased to MVR 100 million.
The parliament holds discretionary authority to approve Auditor General's Office budget, which is then submitted to the Ministry of Finance to include in the following year's state budget.
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