Background:

The current name of the department whose officers and employees are responsible for accounting and auditing the revenue and expenditure of the Government of Bangladesh is the Audit and Accounts Department. Although this department is known by most people as AG (Accountant General) Office. Before independence, the then East Pakistan had AG (East Pakistan). At that time AG (East Pakistan) was doing post audit of the concerned offices along with preparation of accounts of all other civil offices except Works, WAPDA and PT&T department. However, bills for civil offices located in Dhaka were passed by the AG office and bills for offices outside Dhaka were passed by the relevant treasury office. AG (East Pakistan) was renamed as AG (Civil) in 1972 after the independence of Bangladesh.

Although AG (Civil), AG (Works and WAPDA) were established under new names, the three offices continued to carry out their work in the same manner with some functional changes. On the other hand, after the independence of Bangladesh, the office in charge of bill passing and accounting of the military was the Controller of Military Accounts (CMA), Dhaka. Although all bills for civil offices outside Dhaka were passed by treasury officers, the establishment of TAO offices under the control of the then AG of East Pakistan began some time before independence. A Finance Department order in 1985 established the office of CGA, formerly known as AG (Civil). This office was established to make the accounting system of Bangladesh government more dynamic. Currently there are 50 CAO offices, 7 divisional offices, 57 DA offices and 427 UAO offices under the CGA office.

Establishment of Chief Accounts Office:

A government decision was made in 1982 to exempt the Office of the Accountant General (Civil) from the bill-side responsibilities and form the office of the Chief Accounting Officer (CAO) under the control of the concerned ministry. In the first phase of implementation of the decision, the first CAO/Agriculture and CAO/Education offices were established in July 1983. Thus a total of 20 CAO offices were established and brought directly under the administrative control of the CGA. Note that at that time there was a CAO office for each major ministry and a CAO office for several small ministries. Later, from 2002 till the time of renaming of the office, one office of Chief Accounts Officer was created for each Ministry/Department. Since then, instead of 20 CAO offices, a total of 50 CAO offices have been operating under the CGA office.

Change of Office Name:

The name of the Chief Accounts Office has been changed to the Office of the Chief Accounts and Finance Officer through the Notification No. 07.00.0000.082.15002.19-476, dated 18/11/2019 AD of the Ministry of Finance. . In light of the notification, the Office of the Chief Accounts Officer, Ministry of Law has been replaced by Chief Accounts and Finance Officer and in short CAFO has been replaced by CAO.

CAFO/Ministry of Law A very important CAO office among the 50 Chief Accounts and Finance Offices is the CAFO, Ministry of Law. One of the most important law ministries of the Bangladesh government and its subordinate offices, the work related to bills is pre-audited and passed through this office. The operation of this office started from 1st July 2002. Through this office and all the offices under it, all the work related to the bill is pre-audited and passed. This office passes its own related bills and all bills related to pension of other offices mentioned above are passed through this office.