Mr. W.P.C. Wickramaratne appointed as 41st Auditor General of Sri Lanka and he has commenced his career as an Audit Examiner in the then Auditor General’s Department in 1988 at the age of 23 and left the Department in 1992 to serve as a Government Accountant for nearly one year. Later on he again joined the Auditor General’s Department as a Superintendent of Audit in 1992 and appointed as Deputy Auditor General in 2007 and subsequently promoted to the post of Additional Auditor General in 2015. He was granted no pay leave and worked in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as a Divisional Accountant in a Private Company for nearly four years and gained international working experience. His Excellency the President has appointed Mr. Wickramaratne to act in the post of the Auditor General for the period from 1st November 2014 to 28th November 2015. He also appointed to act in the post of the Auditor General in several occasions when the Auditor General was out of the country.
In the capacity of Acting Auditor General and Additional Auditor General Mr. Wickramaratne directly involved in the legal reforms introduced to strengthen the role and the independence of the Auditor General of Sri Lanka through the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution and the National Audit Act No 19 of 2018.
Mr. Wickramaratne has graduated with Honours from the Kelaniya University in Commerce and completed his professional accountancy examinations from the institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka and qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 2001. He is a Fellow Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka (FCA), a qualified accountant member of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance & Accountancy of UK (CIPFA) and Institute of Certified Management Accountants of Sri Lanka (ACMA). He also holds Fellowship in the Institute of Financial Accountants of the United Kingdom (FFA). He is an active member of the Public Sector Accounting Standards Committee of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka and a member of the Board of Management of the Association of Public Finance Accountants of Sri Lanka, the public sector wing of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sri Lanka since its inception.
Mr. Wickramaratne has over 30 years of experience over auditing, investigation and accounting. During his long years of service in the Auditor General’s Department and the National Audit Office Mr. Wickramaratne was responsible, at various times, for the audit of State Enterprises, Statutory Boards and similar bodies and the Accounts of the Central Government. He held the position of project manager of the Public Sector Capacity Building Project and commended his work by the World Bank in several occasions. He was the pioneer of automating the audit work by introducing the audit management software. As Deputy Auditor General he functioned as Head of the Technical Division, Information Technology Division and Training and Development Division.
He has maintained very good relationship with the other sister organizations in the world and with the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI). Mr. Wickramaratne has represented the Auditor General in number of international conferences and workshops and shared his experience with his international colleagues in the fields of public accountability, good governance, implementation of international auditing standards etc.
As the Additional Auditor General Mr. Wickramaratne has realigned the Office to focus on its wider mandate of assuring that public funds have been used lawfully, effectively and efficiently. He has championed an assurance framework, involving fiscal accountability; managerial accountability through continuous audit presence and accountability for service delivery.
