Rajiv Mehrishi

Rajiv Mehrishi, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India, will be the External Auditor of the World Health Organisation (WHO) for a four-year term from 2020 to 2023.

The election was held at the seventy-second World Health Assembly in Geneva on May 23, 2019, where the CAG of India was elected with a majority (90 out of 162 votes) in the first round of voting itself. Apart from India, others competing for the position were the Auditors General of Congo, France, Ghana, Tunisia and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Mehrishi will take over from the incumbent External Auditor of WHO, the Supreme Audit Institution of the Philippines. This is the second major international audit assignment for the CAG this year, following his selection for the post of External Auditor of the Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome in March 2019.

The CAG of India is currently also on the Board of Auditors of the United Nations and Vice-Chair of the UN Panel of External Auditors.

Comptroller and Auditor General

• The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India is an authority, established by Article 148 of the Constitution of India, which audits all receipts and expenditure of the Government of India and the state governments, including those of bodies and authorities substantially financed by the government.
• The CAG is also the external auditor of Government-owned corporations and conducts supplementary audit of government companies, i.e., any non-banking/ non-insurance company in which Union Government has an equity share of at least 51 per cent or subsidiary companies of existing government companies.
• The reports of the CAG are taken into consideration by the Public Accounts Committees (PACs) and Committees on Public Undertakings (COPUs), which are special committees in the Parliament of India and the state legislatures.