The SNP’s depute leader was kept in the dark about auditors quitting in the middle of a police investigation into party finances.
Keith Brown also said he regretted the SNP did not implement a transparency review he helped write in 2021.
Johnston Carmichael resigned their auditor role in around October last year when Nicola Sturgeon was still leader.
But the move was only confirmed publicly this month, sparking further accusations of secrecy in the SNP.
In an interview with Sky News, Keith Brown, who has been depute leader since 2018, said he only became aware of the auditors’ decision “shortly” after it became public.
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He said: “We are talking within the last couple of months.”
Brown, who was sacked from the Cabinet when Humza Yousaf took over as First Minister, said:
“We had a change of auditors. Like many, many other auditors across the UK, the auditors employed by the SNP decided they were going to cut back the activities they were involved in and that was true of many auditors and for many organisations.”
He said of why Yousaf was not told last year about the resignation:
“Humza Yousaf was not on the party's [governing] NEC, which is where that would be discussed, and you'd have to ask Nicola Sturgeon in terms of what she knew and when. But what's very important is that the party complies with the requirements it has.”
He also tried to downplay the decision: “This was a fairly commonplace occurrence. So this wasn't a crisis that we didn't have auditors. This was a change of auditors.”
Brown was behind an internal report from 2021 which called for greater transparency.
He told the BBC: "The party's NEC considered that and decided to go a different route.
"I regret the fact that wasn't taken forward. But I am very pleased that on coming in to office Humza has immediately reinitiated a governance and transparency review."
He said of the previous review: "It's not gone at the rate I think it should have gone. It's not done some of the things I think it should have done, but I'm now very pleased that Humza has now grasped this.
"My analysis of it was, especially during the period of COVID, when we had Zoom meetings for an NEC which comprised 40-plus people. They're not permitted to get the questions asked far less answered. I think that caused issues at that stage."
The SNP is in crisis over a police investigation into what happened to over £600,000 of donations raised by the party for indyref2.
Former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell, who is married to Sturgeon, and ex-party treasurer Colin Beattie were both arrested and released without charge.
The SNP has been unable to find replacement auditors since Johnston Carmichael walked away.
The party faces stiff fines if they do not file accounts by July.
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