Kathmandu, August 2 The Office of the Auditor General (OAG) has said that it has already deployed auditors to carry out the audit of last fiscal in Kathmandu Valley and 10 mountainous districts in the first phase as per its plan to conclude auditing all government offices, local units and public corporations by mid-February. The external auditor of the government has been preparing to carry out performance-based auditing of the government offices by hiring experts of the concerned fields. “We are also going to hire specialists to audit the effectiveness of the development works, where a large amount of the government budget is spent, while gauging the rationale and efficiency of the works as well,” said Auditor General Tanka Mani Sharma. Holding an interaction with the secretaries of the government (executive) in the presence of representatives from the Legislature-Parliament — secretary general of the Parliament and Judiciary — chief registrar of the Supreme Court, the OAG informed that the performance, effectiveness, efficiency and rational of the works will also be audited along with regularity and prudence of public spending. The government offices and public corporations have been told to carry out their internal audits of 2016-17 as early as possible. The public corporations, universities, hospitals that had not carried out audits since long have been instructed to conclude backlog audits within mid-September. Audit of last fiscal and back-log audit will be carried out separately, according to OAG. The OAG is going to audit a total of 5,498 offices of the government, including local units and public corporations. The OAG will deploy auditors in 31 districts in second phase and remaining 34 districts in the last phase. OAG has also urged the public to inform the auditors regarding the irregularities they might have noticed in their localities. According to Auditor General Sharma, the report of the OAG will be presented to the president by mid-April.