INTERNAL AUDITORS CAUTIONED AGAINST CONDONNING FINANCIAL MISMANAGEMNET
INTERNAL AUDITORS CAUTIONED
AGAINST CONDONNING FINANCIAL MISMANAGEMNET
BY PETER ATOGEWE WEDAM
AG.PRO-UE/RCC
The Upper East Regional
Minister, Mr. Mark Owen Woyongo has made a passionate appeal to internal
auditors of the Ghana Education Service [GES] to eschew the tendency of
condoning and conniving with management to dissipate public funds stressing
that as “ Internal Auditors, you must always ensure that government has value
for money”.
The Regional Minister
made the appeal in a keynote address at the 8th Annual Conference of
the internal auditors association of the GES held at Bolgatanga in the Upper
East region of Ghana. He further admonished the internal auditors
to promote the ethical culture of the auditing profession by ensuring integrity,
objectivity, confidentiality and showing competence in the execution of their
mandate as auditors. He noted that integrity establishes trust which forms the
basis for reliance on the judgment of auditors.
Since the formation of
the internal auditors association of the GES in 1995,
this is the first time its annual conference is being held in the Upper East
region.
Mr. Woyongo challenged
institutions of state to ensure that the whole process of managing risk including
financial misappropriation is done in a systematic way so as to check wastage
and wrongful use of scarce resources and funds. He observed that government is
devoting significant amount of its budget to the promotion of higher educational
standards implying that there is little left for investment, maintenance and
administration. According to him, it is the internal auditors whose proper
conduct of duty can draw the attention of management to unsustainable trends in
managing the nation’s scarce resources.
The Regional minister
noted that government will, in conformity with the provisions of the Internal
Audit Agency Act, 2003 (Act 658), continue to provide the enabling environment
and resources to support the internal audit units of the GES and other state
institutions to perform their independent appraisal functions effectively. He
entreated the auditors to perform their main role diligently by evaluating the
effectiveness of the internal control system, contribute to its ongoing
effectiveness and monitor risk related events to ensure that public
institutions achieve their desired objectives.
Touching on the theme
for this year’s confab -“Ensuring Prudent Financial Management for a Better
Ghana: the Ghana Education Service Internal Auditors in perspective”, Mr.
Woyongo warned the auditors against using information acquired during audit
sessions for any personal gains advising the auditors to rather be prudent in
the use of such information to the benefit of the nation at large.
The Chairman of the Ghana
Education Service Internal Auditors Association, Rev. Bismark A. Akandi in a
statement called on his colleagues to live above reproach in the discharge of
duties. He urged the auditors to use the conference to share ideas regarding
best practices and also strive to deepen their knowledge in the auditing
profession so as to catch up with changing trends.
The Upper East regional
director of the auditor service, Mr. Sule Saaka expressed worry about the usage
of official vehicles without log books, rising cases of unsupported payments as
revealed at the Public Accounts Committee hearings and the issue of with-held
taxes which are not paid to the internal revenue service. Mr. Saaka challenged
the auditors to purge the profession of these mishaps and also check against
their recurrence.
Comments