'Value billing' should, in theory, be a consequence of the value-added auditing service that most firms claim to have offered for several years.

Consulting work tends to be much more profitable than providing auditing services.

As at 30 June 2008, there are 1,348 firms which are offering auditing services and another 650 firms providing other accountancy related services.

"They were charging $700,000 for performing auditing services for a company whose revenues were around $2 million," Mr. Webster said.

That requires accounting firms capable of providing "continuous auditing services," he added.

A recent survey by Runzheimer found that 34 percent of companies have an auditing service.

The auditing service said that it would produce such reports only for business publications, at least for now.

The Commission's internal auditing service has absolutely no resources for looking at the individual transactions.

The internal auditing service has no resources at all for investigating the control procedures in the agencies.

One is the proposal to set up an independent internal auditing service, which is directly accountable to the President of the Commission.