Audit Service Ends Stakeholders’ Workshop

Concord Times (Freetown)

Rachel Horner

19 May 2011

Freetown — Audit Service Sierra Leone (ASSL) yesterday held a one-day stakeholders’ workshop to have a holistic look into the activities of the ASSL in the past years and review its status and direction. The session was hosted at Taia Resort Hotel, Aberdeen in Freetown.

The objective of the workshop was also to assess stakeholders’ perception of the role of the ASSL in exercising its external oversight function of governance and accountability.

In her opening remarks, acting Auditor-General Lara Taylor-Pearce said the workshop enabled their strategic stakeholders to give their views on the operations of the Audit Service as related to their constitutional mandate of having an oversight role, in a bid to fighting corruption. She said in 1998 the government, through an Act of Parliament, transformed the then Auditor General’s Department to an independent organization.

Mrs. Taylor-Pearce said ASSL has focused on institutional strengthening, professional building of staff, leadership and developing the human resource capacity, among others. She noted the support of ADB, the World Bank, Commonwealth and the biggest long-term support from DFID, while stressing that donor intervention has over the period been independently reviewed and has been judged to have been successful.

“There has been a significant improvement in audit quality due to various capacity building interventions. New policies have been introduced; the management of our audits are more focused on a functional rather than as per geographical area, regular in-house training,” she said.

Moreover, the acting Auditor-General noted that their challenges were the ability to recruit and retain the right calibre of staff, obtaining adequate financial support, accommodation problem, need for audited accounts of local councils, and the fact that internal audit units in MDAs were yet to be independent.

The Audit Service board chairman, Martin F. Katta, said the board has continued to support the efforts of the ASSL by putting well qualified personnel in the right positions to help achieve the organizational mission and vision. He called on all to help the ASSL achieve its goals and objectives.

Chairman Public Account Committee (PAC) in Parliament, Hon. Victor Chukuma-Johnson, said the ASSL and PAC have a necessarily close and even symbiotic relationship. He said “PAC adds value to the work of the ASSL”, drawing on its democratic legitimacy and status as a parliamentary institution.

He said the amendment of Section 75 of the Standing Orders of the Sierra Leone Parliament to conduct all hearings in the House and the memorandum of understanding with the Anti-Corruption Commission and other activities were major successes made.

Hon. Chukuma-Johnson maintained that PAC was relatively satisfied with the manner in which ASSL was carrying out its activities in the accountability drive, but however noted that the Audit Service lacked adequate manpower and accommodation facility, and also beset by logistical constraints.

Various presentations were made by the World Bank, ADB, DFID, EU, civil society and others.

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