Against the continuing controversy over President Anura Kumara Dissanayake holding up the appointment of Auditor General, a group of NAO personnel recently attended a capacity-building programme in India.

The Committee on Public Finance, Bar Association of Sri Lanka and Transparency International have strongly criticised President Dissanayake over the delay in finalising the appointment due to his nominee not being acceptable to the Constitutional Council.

The following is the text of statement issued by the Indian High Commission in Colombo: “A capacity-building programme for 35 officials from National Audit Office (NAO) of Sri Lanka was organised at International Centre for Information Systems and Audit (iCISA), Noida from 08-19 December 2025.

iCISA, established in March 2002, is a premier institution in India dedicated to promoting high-quality audit training and aligning IT audit practices with global best standards. iCISA is a designated Global Training Facility of the INTOSAI Working Group on IT Audit, and has so far trained over 5000 participants from 154 countries.

Based on request from the NAO, the first week of the tailor-made programme for Sri Lankan Audit officials focused on IT Audit, covering Information Systems governance frameworks such as COBIT and relevant ISO standards, INTOSAI guidance, risk-based audit planning and execution, cybersecurity, data privacy, etc., supported by case studies and practical exercises, along with a site visit to a high-performance computing facility as well as exposure visits in New Delhi and Agra. The second week focused on Audit of Public Procurement covering themes such as digitization of procurement processes, audit of Government e-Marketplace (GeM), sector-specific procurement audits specifically relating to Railways and Defence, use of data analytics and emerging technologies, among others.

The programme was organised within the framework of ongoing bilateral cooperation between India and Sri Lanka in the area of capacity development,  that was further enhanced through addition of 700 customized training slots annually for Sri Lankan professionals based on announcement made by the Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi, during his visit to Sri Lanka in April 2025.”