24th session of WIPO Program & Budget Committee

India's intervention on the Agenda item 5 on
Report by the External Auditor (Document WO/PBC/24/5) delivered by Amb. Ajit Kumar, Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations, Geneva

[14-18 September 2015]

Muchas Gracias Sr. Presidente

Mr. Chairman,

India would like to thank the External Auditor, represented by Mr. Rajesh Singh from the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, for the presentation of the report contained in document WO/PBC/24/5 on the financial statements of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) for the year 2014 ending 31 December, and recommendations made on the basis of audits carried out in 2014-15.

2. The report is comprehensive and was submitted in time, providing ample opportunity for Member States to deliberate on it. My delegation has gone through the observations for implementation concerning financial management, operation of the Enterprise Resource Planning system, and human resource management in this report and also carefully studied the recommendations made by External Auditors to the WIPO Secretariat.

3. Reports by External Auditor have been an invaluable tool for the work of the Program & Budget Committee. We are confident that the reports from the current External Auditor, who has undertaken external audit of WHO, IMO, FAO, OPCW, etc., during the past years would be of immense value. The degree of competence, credibility and trustworthiness, of this Supreme Audit Institute of India, has been well recognized in their engagement with other UN bodies.

4. The External Auditor observed that the financial transactions by WIPO have been in accordance with the WIPO's Financial Regulations and Rules. On this account, WIPO Secretariat deserves our commendation.

5. The report points that out of 19 projects listed under the Enterprise Resource Planning system, one project was completed and seven projects have gone live. Thus, the External Auditors have not been able to assess the overall benefits derived by the WIPO from the ERP system given the delays and inter-linkages among projects.

6. As brought out in the last Audit report, the present definition of development expenditure is silent about the nature of development activities covered and their intended impact on the development of countries through IP tools. While assessing development shared under substantive programs,External Auditor has found that regular expenses, like traveling allowance and daily subsistence allowance, were also shown as development share.

7. My delegation reiterates that there should be a precise definition of development expenditure, and WIPO management needs to formulate a method for determining the development share under each program and activity so that effectiveness of the mainstreaming exercise can be assessed objectively by Member states. We hope that Member States could reach consensus on it and finalize the definitionin this meeting itself.

8. The monitoring of the implementation of recommendations made by external audit is an important part of the accountability process. Most of the recommendations made in this report are at various stages of implementation. We complement the WIPO management for their response to the recommendations by the External Auditor and the measures taken by them for improvements in different areas. We would urge the Secretariat to take action to implement the pending recommendations. We would impress on the need to implement the 21 recommendations made by the External Auditors in a timely manner.

9. Before concluding, my delegation would like to place on record its appreciation to the External Auditor for their diligent work and for making a timely presentation of their Report, which would become the basis for PBC's recommendations.

Thank you Mr. Chairman.

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