Accountants or the like?

Accountants! Don't be boring, save the planet instead!?

• Have you lived in a country which should be stinking rich but is jam packed with people living in blighted misery? The fundamental reason is always corruption in public office. Who can spot that? Only accountants. But audit within a nation is controlled by the government of said nation, and accountants with guns at their heads or bungs in their pockets are only human. So here's my idea: ...a UN sponsored crack team of Chartered Accountants and Auditors who can be called or sent into a country and audit all or any part of the public tax and spend therein. They could have very limited powers, e.g. report only (red/amber/green), or you could give them the ability to send people to the Hague. Participation by the countries concerned would be voluntary (which suggests that limited powers are actually more effective) and would occur if a government wanted to show itself to be clean, maybe after a scandal, or because it was excluded from some club such as WTO. Well?

• Answer:

  I like that idea. The practical issues (such as the breadth of specialist knowledge required) are immense though; public sector accounting is nowhere near as organised as corporate accounting (which itself varies wildly across jurisdictions). Also, the limitation of powers means they would have to face the same problems that make UN weapon inspections so ineffective.