MDAs set up internal audit units

Story: Lucy Adoma Yeboah Page 47
A NUMBER of ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) which have hitherto been found wanting, are hurrying to put in place internal auditing mechanisms in an apparent move to avoid queries from the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) at future public hearings.
Ten of such public institutions have approached the Internal Audit Agency (IAA) within the past few weeks to help them establish Audit Report Implementation Committees (ARIC) with many more making enquiries on the subject.
The Director-General of the IAA, Mr Patrick Nomo told the Daily Graphic in Accra yesterday that since the law for the establishment of the ARICs came into effect in 2000, only 31 MDAs had put in place some form of committees even though some of them needed to be strengthened, since they were not up to accepted standards.
He said the agency was, therefore, coming out with a new set of guidelines to help the country benefit from the committees.
Mr Nomo said Section 30 of the Audit Service Act 584 of 2000 required all MDAs, metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs) to set up Audit Report Implementation Committees (ARICs) to ensure the implementation of audit reports.
In addition, he said Section 16 (8) of the IAA Act 658 of 2003 also reiterated the need for all MDAs and MMDAs to comply with Section 30 (1) of Act 584 and establish ARICs and pointed out that in addition to these, the framework for professional practice of internal auditing issued by the Institute of Internal Auditors also required organisations to have not just audit committees, but effective ones.
Mr Nomo said many public institutions had failed to comply with the law either because of lack of knowledge or failure to appreciate the importance of the committees, hence the embarrassing disclosures at the PAC proceedings.
He pointed out that although some embezzlements might have gone on in some of the institutions which appeared before the PAC, about 50 per cent of the financial misappropriation reported at the hearing could be due to poor and unprofessional financial records keeping.
He said the ARIC was a corporate tool and a high-level committee composed of independent members who had the responsibility to ensure that internal audit units were functioning effectively and also recommendations made in audit reports were appropriately implemented to ensure efficient and effective utilisation of public funds in line with the Public Financial Reform Programmes (PUFMARP).
For an effective performance of duty, Mr Nomo pointed out that, “an ARIC shall have unrestricted access to all information, documents, personnel and adequate resources in order to fulfil its responsibilities”.
On the issue of existence of Internal Audit Units in public institutions, he said as at the end of 2005, only 53 out of about 120 MDAs and MMDAs his outfit visited, had the units in place and explained that there were more than 200 public institutions in the country which must all have internal audit units.
Mr Nomo reiterated an earlier statement made by the Controller and Accountant General, Mr Christian T. Sottie, that it was better to prevent fraud than to wait and detect it after it had occurred, since it was difficult to retrieve such stolen funds.
He, therefore, asked for the strengthening of institutions put in place to help prevent fraud to enable them to perform effectively to protect public funds.
He said it had come out that many of the institutions did not have the appropriate measures in place to help prevent wrongdoing because of lack of knowledge, and announced that his outfit would organise an Internal Audit Forum on November 20, on the theme, “Mitigating Corporate Fraud, Abuse and Waste: The Role of the Internal Auditor”.