Foreign Aided Projects Audit Directorate (FAPAD)

The Foreign Aided Projects Audit Directorate (FAPAD) is a specialized arm among the seventeen directorates of the Office of the Comptroller & Auditor General (OCAG), the Supreme Audit Institution (SAI) of Bangladesh and entrusted to auditing the activities of all development and technical assistance projects and programs in the public sector funded by foreign aid.

As a result of its only one of kind task of development project auditing, FAPAD provides independent assurance and report on the proper accounting of project resources to the National Parliament of Bangladesh as well as to the Development Partners.

This institution has a long history to come to its present position. In the decades of 1970’s to 80s, foreign aid played an important role in stabilizing the economy of Bangladesh to bear the after effects of the war of independence. Importantly, the increasing flow of foreign aid and the inevitability of ensuring proper accounting use of this aid caused the establishment of an office to the government.

Behind the establishment if this office, Foreign aid organizations, Specially World Bank, ADB and others had an inspiring role. As specific move, World Bank in a letter to the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Planning on 09/06/1981 outlined the necessity of establishment of an office for Auditing of foreign aided projects.

Accordingly, the Officer of Comptroller & Auditor General sent a proposal of opening a new office for accounting of foreign aid and for auditing of the foreign aided projects to the Finance Division, Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Planning on 15/12/1981 as per the mandate of CAG. The Finance Division in consultation with ERD and World Bank conferred their final sanction of setting up this directorate on 21/11/1982.

Finally, the activities of FAPAD started in March 1983 in full swing. Since its formal beginning in 1983, FAPAD has been conducting effective audit of public sector operations for optimum utilization of public resources providing reliable and objective information to assist the government in ensuring accountability and transparency of foreign funds in Bangladesh.

FAPAD carries out financial audit of projects and programs funded by the development partners as their regular audit practice. Also audit service provided by FAPAD is integrated and designed to meet the explicit and implied requirements of the Development Partners. So, fiduciary requirements of the Development Partners and the Government of Bangladesh set the audit direction.

It is a great challenge for the government to utilize the foreign fund effectively, so through conducting audit, FAPAD ensures transparency and accountability of the foreign funds. In this context, FAPAD recovers huge amount of money every financial year from foreign aided projects which spend money violating rules and regulations and deposit any unspent money in the government exchequer. The directorate has initiated ISSAI standard audit as well as performance audit to ensure that not only money is spent in conformity with rules and regulations but also whether the projects achieve its objectives.

Our mission is to conduct effective audit of public sector operations for optimum utilization of public resources providing reliable and objective information to assist in establishing accountability and transparency in government activities.