By Edward Dankwah
Accra, June 19, GNA – The Internal Audit Agency (IAA) has sensitised audit committees on the new guidelines issued by the Minister for Finance to guide their operations and to make them effective in supporting the public sector institutions.
The Public Financial Management (PFM) required that the agency advises the Minister for Finance on these guidelines to improve operational efficiencies of audit committees and make them well positioned as a statutory institution.
During the sensitisation workshop in Accra, Dr Eric Oduro Osae, Director-General, Internal Audit Agency, said the audit committees were to technically support the work of internal auditors.
He said the Government was doing this for the Chief Executives, Heads of Institutions and Administrators to be able to resolve internal issues before external auditors come in.
Dr Oduro Osae said currently the finance minister was working with the IAA to by the end of this month issue audit report implementation guidelines to track implementation of all audit committee recommendations to process numerous reports received on a real time basis.
He added that the government, with the support of development partners, was working to automate public sector internal audit by acquiring an audit management information system.
Dr Oduro Osae said the committee was a statutory institution set up under the PFM act with membership from IAA and the Institute of Chartered Accountants to support management.
The Director-General said internal auditors were to strengthen control systems and make sure that they were working.
He added that, “but we have been receiving reports that some of the internal auditors turn around to rather point control weaknesses out to external auditors, something they shouldn’t be able to prevent.”
Dr Oduro Osae advised internal auditors to be up and working towards preventing irregularities and ensuring that systems were working.
“They should not be the ones to rather point to external auditors where their weaknesses are because once they do that, it means they have failed because they are not doing their work,” he said.
The Director-General said the key areas in the guidelines included explanations on how to elect a new audit committee Chairman.
He said previously, the electoral college for the election of audit committee chairmen were only the three external persons, but now the electoral college must be all five statutory members.
Dr Oduro Osae also noted that previously, funding audit committee meetings was a challenge, but they had now clarified the role of the institution to support audit committees in their operations.
He said another area of clarity in the guidelines was about the submission of reports, the frequency of meetings, and how relevant audit committees were as far as the financial operations of public institutions were concerned.
“So, it is a way of strengthening the audit committees, so once they are there, we expect public institutions to deliver on their mandate with ease, hence I advise them to balance their energies between performance audit and financial audit,” Dr Oduro Osae stressed.
Mr Hambali Daud Sissey, Technical Advisor on Accountability, GIZ, said the guidelines for the effective functioning of audit committees was an important guidance for not only effective audit committees, but also ensured that all audit committees worked to the same standard.
He noted their excitement to be part of the revision of the guidelines from the beginning in 2020 by supporting in the process of stakeholder engagement which brought the entire guidelines to conclusion for approval.
“This comes as part of GIZ’s support towards enhancing public resource management and it is consistent with the objectives of our program to enhance mechanisms for budgetary implementation, and to seek to increase implementation of audit recommendations,” he stressed.
GNA