The Bhutanese Leading the way.
The Royal Audit Authority is right to tighten the rules on audit clearances. Bhutan cannot have a system where audit observations remain unresolved for years while officials move from one post to another and the same problems are inherited by their successors.
Officials who make poor decisions, ignore procedures or fail to act on audit findings should face consequences. Without that, rules mean little.
Yet there is a risk in making the audit process so consequential that officials become reluctant to make decisions. Government cannot function if every decision is made with an audit memo in mind. Officials have to take decisions, including difficult ones, and accept responsibility for them.
The problem is particularly acute when relatively minor or procedural lapses become audit memos and remain unresolved for years. An official can inherit an old issue long after the original decision was made, only to discover that the memo has become a serious problem when promotion, transfer, retirement benefits or election clearance comes up.
The RAA itself has found cases where the responsible person was never properly identified, accountability was wrongly assigned, or the official had transferred, resigned, left the country or died.
That distinction matters. Accountability should attach to the decision and the person who made it. An official who inherits a problem should be judged on whether they took reasonable steps to resolve it, not treated as though they committed the original offence.
There is also a need to distinguish serious wrongdoing from mistakes and minor procedural lapses. Not every audit observation represents corruption or a reckless decision. Some arise from weak procedures, poor documentation or the inevitable complications of running a large public organisation.
The answer is not to weaken the RAA. It is to make accountability more precise. Officials should know that reckless decisions will have consequences, while also knowing that taking a legitimate decision in the public interest will not automatically become a personal liability years later.
Bhutan needs accountability that makes people more responsible, not more afraid.
Officials should fear making bad decisions. They should not fear making decisions.
It is not only what we do, but also what we do not do, for which we are accountable.
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin