By Issah Mohammed
Accra, May 8, GNA – The Performance Audit Report of the Auditor General on fleet management of the National Ambulance Service has earned the Ghana Audit Service (GAS) the Swedish National Audit Office (SNAO) Best Performance Audit Report Award for 2022.
The award, which is the second in a row and the third for the Service since the inception of the award scheme in 2008, was presented at the Strategic Review and the 19th Governing Board Meeting of the African Organisation of English-speaking Supreme Audit Institutions (AFROSAI-E).
The theme for the event was: “Disallowance and Surcharge: Meeting Public Expectations”.
Some highlights of the reports, which covered the period of 2017 to 2021 included unsatisfactory management and deployment of ambulance movement systems, non-adherence to prescribed servicing maintenance schedule and contracting of staff as service provider for vehicle maintenance.
Mr. Johnson Akuamoah Asiedu, the Auditor-General, ssd there must be a rethink of how audit was approached to meet the expectations of respective stakeholders who were becoming more interested in audit results.
“The average citizen expects us as public sector auditors to work hard and protect the public purse and, therefore, we must continue to innovate and put adequate systems in place to discharge this great mandate,” he said.
Mr Asiedu said the rethink should include deepening relationship with stakeholders, and reforms to ensure high level of professionalism through the allocation of relevant auditing standards in discharge of audit assignment.
“We must be sensitive to the integrity of information, including the source of information and the appropriateness of its presentation. We must be alert to potential bias and other elements in the normal exercise of our professional judgement,” he said.
He said: “This award is going to put more fuel in our efforts to continuously develop the best audit report in our region.”
Ms Helina Lindberg, the Auditor General of Sweden, said she was saddened by a situation where AFROSAI-E members continuously faced financial and legislative threat as well as leadership instability due to independence issues.
She called for collaboration of stakeholders to proactively advocate for independence of auditor generals in the region adding that: “It is important that we focus on broadening the narrative and coming with a joint message in which independence is a package that includes value and relevance.
“Independence never happens by chance. We need to excel in our own accountability and transparency to the stakeholders that we serve by demonstrating why we did our work, how we did it.”
AFROSAI-E is the African branch of the International Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (IOSAI).
It performs an enabling role in the region by sharing information with its members and supporting them towards the better performance of their mandates.
It is a member-based institution with 26 Auditors-General from English-speaking African countries constituting its Governing Board.
GNA