The First Senior Officials Meeting of the SAI20 Engagement Group under India’s G20 Presidency concluded today in Guwahati. Shri Girish Chandra Murmu, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India and the Chair of the Supreme Audit Institutions-20 (SAI20) Engagement Group, delivered the concluding remarks.
Girish Chandra Murmu in his valedictory address appreciated the wealth of knowledge gained during the deliberations on the priority areas of Blue Economy and Responsible Artificial Intelligence (AI). He stressed on the need for collaboration for developing and strengthening accountability frameworks in the two priority areas.
Murmu highlighted that though each nation has their own unique challenges in achievement of Sustainable Development Goals, a good widely replicable knowledge system drawing upon collective wisdom is achievable. The experiences and inputs of the delegates provided a concrete pathway towards tangible outcomes in the form of auditing guidelines and toolkits for effective audits, as well as the SAI20 Communique, he added.
Parveen Mehta, Dy. Comptroller and Auditor General thanked all the International and National delegates for constructive and rewarding discussions as also for active involvement in all the programs in the SAI20 Senior Official Meeting thereby making the event successful and setting the stage for the SAI20 summit in June.
Senior Official meeting today focused on the deliberations on the Zero draft of the SAI20 Communique. The delegates from the SAI20 member SAIs while broadly agreeing to the Zero draft of the Communique provided their valuable thoughts and suggestions to bring out an inclusive, decisive, and action-oriented Communique in the SAI20 summit scheduled in June 2023.
The delegates from the G20 member SAIs, delegates from Guest Countries SAIs and Invited International organisation were also invited to make general statements on the SAI20 Senior Official meetings. The delegations in their General Statements agreed on the strong relevance of the priority areas while appreciating the presentations. The delegates also appreciated the productiveness of the deliberations of the last 2 days.
After the concluding session the Comptroller and Auditor General of India Murmu addressed a press conference and said that after the two day meeting here there is a consensus that Blue Economy and responsible use of Artificial Intelligence are emerging issues we need to address as Audit community and exchange our knowledge and share our expertise and also help each other in the capacity building.
The two day meeting saw participation of around 38 National and International delegates from G20 member SAIs, observer SAIs and WB, as invited organisation.
