No objection to CAG audit, but no performance audit please: RIL

Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) today said the companies has never objected to an audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) of its accounts relating to the Krishna-Godaveri basin gas block (KG-D6), but insisted that the CAG has no right to conduct a performance audit on a private operator.

The CAG, however, made it clear that its audit of Reliance Industries-operated Krishna-Godavari (KG) oil and gas block off Andhra Pradesh coast has to be a performance audit and not just a financial one.

"The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) is fully within its rights to look into the efficiency and economy in respect of revenues accruing to the Consolidated Fund of India," an official in CAG's office said.

"RIL has at no time contested the government's right to conduct an audit by any agency, including the CAG as provided in Section 1.9 of the Accounting Procedure of the PSC. At all times RIL has fully co-operated with any auditor appointed by the government, including in several cases where the government had already exercised its audit rights earlier or where such audit was beyond the period stipulated in the PSC.''

''We are private operators functioning under a PSC,'' the company said, adding that it did not expect the government auditor to conduct a performance-related audit on a private operator.

''We appreciate the fact that the CAG is in agreement that it does not conduct performance audit of private operators and expect that no such performance related audit issues applicable to the government will be applied to any such audit,'' RILO said in a release.