Home > About ASOSAI > ASOSAI Assembly: Declarations & Symposiums > Ninth Assembly Symposium

October 20-26, 2003
Manila, Philippines

THE COMMISSION ON AUDIT OF THE PHILIPPINES

Secretary General Kaul, my good friend, Chairman Carague of COA, Commissioner Catli, ladies and gentlemen.

It is indeed my pleasure to be with you today. It is in fact quite an honor. It's not often that I stand before a group of Supremes and it is quite a daunting task. Fortunately, I find myself in the company of people coming from countries with which I have some familiarity. So for those of you from India, (greeting in Hindu or Sanskrit). I also noticed that there are even those delegates here who come from Cyprus. And during my days in the World Bank, that was about 10 years between 1978 to 1987, I was actually the World Bank country officer for Cyprus. And I was also the country officer for Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. I also noticed that Bahrain is also represented here. So it is indeed a pleasure to be with you today at the triennial assembly of the heads of delegates of the 35-member country of the Asian Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions. Usually, I'm on the receiving end of Supreme Audit Institutions. So, I'm quite glad to have this opportunity today to be at the other end. Your theme, "Quality Management in Public Audit" is timely as countries all over the world today are very concerned about good governance in both the public and corporate sectors,

I have had the good fortune of having my feet planted in both government - for some time at the Development Bank of the Philippines and later, as Secretary of Finance -and the private sector - where I am, at present. I consider it therefore a privilege to share with you, not necessarily any expertise on audit, because you are the experts, but my experience with public audit, as well as my thoughts on how audit can possibly improve public governance.

Auditors have always been portrayed as grouchy, unsmiling, faultfinding creatures, and while this caricature may be unfair (or is it?) it is one that many people can relate to. Allow me to inflict on you my own tale, which we can all take with a great dose of humor. Long after I had left government service, I received a letter from my former department, that is the Department of Finance, asking me to produce the original receipts, including cancelled airline tickets, referring to an official trip that I had gone to with former President Ramos some 10 years ago. Surely, I had settled this long ago, as I had been able to leave the sen/ice with the appropriate clearances -and now, over a decade later, I have to produce cancelled airline tickets?

Examples like this, which may be multiplied several times over, are what give auditors that sort of dour image. In addition, those of us who have had to deal with them are familiar with the particular mindset that some say is associated with auditors, therefore, post-audit of financial accounts resulted to a better division of responsibility, namely being able to discern the adequacy of the fiscal control process.

With the ascendance of a new and morally grounded administration in 1986, the concerns about pre-audit difficulties were addressed. In 1989, a Commission on Audit Circular lifting the pre-audit pre-requisite was issued, albeit retaining, for the moment, pre-audit on selected (meaning suspicious) transactions. Other requirements for allowing post-audit referred to the installation of an internal control system that would achieve economy, efficiency and effectiveness in the management and utilization of resources. Similarly, it required the strengthening of the accounting system in terms of timeliness, accuracy and reportorial aspects.

The appointment of the current COA Chairman brought fresh perspectives to government audit. And I say that not just because he's a good friend of mine. Having been in public accountancy practice, and having encountered audit difficulties during his term in government, he resolved to bring to government audit the principles and practices of public accounting. It meant revising a fifty-year old government accounting system to conform as much as possible to generally accepted accounting principles, make it easier to understand, and a system that had the capacity to generate reports useful to those running the various government agencies. It meant developing software for the computerized implementation of the new government accounting system. It meant an organizational restructuring in COA. In short, it meant that government audit had to shift to a new paradigm of behavior.

The winds of change that are sweeping through our government audit practice are in tandem with the current emphasis on good corporate governance. We all know that the 1997 Asian financial crisis that resulted in the reversal of fortunes of the once touted "miracle countries" of Asia highlighted the interest on corporate governance. While the extent of devastation among the countries varied, analysts were quick to point out that weaknesses in corporate governance led to the build-up of vulnerabilities in these countries. The Asian crisis drove home the idea that perhaps, Asian countries did need to look at governance problems and to engage them in reforming both the corporate sector and the bureaucracy.

It was about this time that I was the Philippine minister of finance and had the fortune or misfortune of being the chair of the APEC Finance Ministers that gave rise to a meeting during which we came up with what came to be known as the Manila Framework. We agreed that there had to be a thorough review of governance issues and that it was necessary to establish concrete standards and guideposts thereof in order to regain investor confidence. Finance Ministers accepted the view that their governments had to be bold enough to check various abuses associated with "crony capitalism." Among the actions that needed to be taken was to provide greater transparency in financial reporting standards and accounting standards.

Among the most-emphasized corporate governance practices is the installation of audit committees in boards. In my transition to the private sector after my years in government, I have been invited to serve as independent director in various boards. Independent directors are a must in the new paradigm of good corporate governance, as they invariably become the chairmen of that over-arching board committee - the audit committee. In fact, now I find myself in so many audit committees. It takes even more time than the board meetings. Before coming here, I just finished two consecutive audit committee meetings each lasting about three hours. So my day started pretty early.

And in my experience as board director, I have noted that audit committees have come to front and center, becoming the most conspicuous in terms of responsibility and accountability. Clearly, this relates to the idea that sufficient scrutiny of transactions affecting a company's bottom line as well as its over-all viability is necessary to protect the interests of its shareholders. This kind of scrutiny is needed to deter attempts to engage in financial shenanigans that the likes of Enron and others foisted on innocent stakeholders and a shocked world.

If these shell games have been easily played out in the private sector, where Queensberry rules are supposed to be observed by business gentlemen, how much more easily might government become adept at it? Countless studies by multilateral and academics have pointed to corruption in high places as having thwarted economic development in Asia. It seems to me then that public audit should take a leaf from the principles of corporate governance, which emphasize fairness, transparency and accountability, as succinctly defined by former World Bank President Wolfensohn.

In corporate circles, audit committees are supposed to be responsible for a number of things:

1. Ensuring that the company is appropriately and effectively managed and controlled

2. Ensuring that management actively manages and operates the company in a sound and prudent manner

3. Ensuring that the organizational and procedural controls are supported by an effective management information system and a risk management reporting system

4. Making effective the organization's governance, operations and information systems. Such systems should ensure the reliability and integrity of financial, operating information, safeguarding the company's assets and other resources, and compliance with laws, rules, regulations and contracts.

The question is: -Is there a parallel in government audit? I would think, most certainly! While pre-audit has already been lifted, at least here, bureaucratic red tape, audit rules require that implementation and monitoring is a direct responsibility of the agency head. The agency head must make sure to focus its efforts on post-audit of financial accounts with a view to assessing and evaluating the adequacy and efficiency of the agency's fiscal control process. There are no audit committees in the government bureaucracy. Nor is there a parallel of the internal audit office that you might find in the government sector. But I suggest that in government-owneri-and-controlled corporations, a practice that is akin to the audit committee might be explored. The Commission on Audit, of course, is what would be equivalent to the external auditor in the private sector. But the COA and supreme audit institutions would do well to consider that its role should extend beyond the usual cop-on-block mentality but rather take note of how private external auditors also provide advice to management on the continuing improvement of the financial position of the company as well as suggestions or measures on fiscal prudence and risk management. The measures that have been instituted in the United States, for example, as embodied in the Sarbaines-Oxley Act require that CEOs and CFOs personally vouch for the veracity of their financial statements and to strengthen disclosure requirements. In a similar fashion, it may be considered that government-owned-and-controlled corporations heads should be required to have such a disclosure requirement and to attest to the veracity of the financial transactions of the corporation. And COA like the external auditor in the private sector should not be there merely to uncover fraud and material discrepancies. In the public sector, what the supreme audit institution or COA should be doing, is it should be responsible for a quality-oriented audit.

It might be added that measures to improve governance in public audit should strike the appropriate balance between responsibility and authority, without stifling initiative. Good governance in audit should include making full use of technology to enhance transparency and accountability. For example, in the bidding process for government contracts, automation or computerization would objectively operationalize the process and eliminate opportunities for graft and corruption or at least diminish the occasions of discretion that lead to graft and corruption. Of course, even as we recommend full computerization throughout government, we would caution that audit must also be alert to the hidden agenda in the computerization of government, as this is an area where bad governance can easily rear its head. And we know that in computerization, one of the cardinal principles, or rather characteristic is "garbage-in garbage-out." And even if it might look nice and modern and computerized, if it started with garbage, you will have nice and modern, computerized garbage.

How might public audit detect instances of fraud, incompetence or bad judgment? I'd say that the answer is that auditors must always provide quality and excellence in their work. I have often expounded that economic development in the faster growing economies was the product of those countries whose citizens were driven by a culture of excellence. I have even fulminated against what we in the Philippines call a "pwede na" attitude. Translated, "pwede na" could mean "this would do" or '"anything goes."

This basically means accepting less than perfect work, merely complying with minimum standards, and a lackadaisical attitude that refuses to aim for something higher. Too often, public audit has been merely the practice of ticking off a laundry list that is supposed to check on compliance with rules. My example of the airline ticket typifies the kind of public audit that we have been used to - and have allowed to foster. The tick list would have demanded the attachment of all those pieces of paper to a liquidation report - but would that have assured government money was spent wisely? That the objectives of raising consciousness of investment opportunities in the Philippines and attracting fund flows into the country were met?

Quality audit to my mind is one that achieves that serendipitous balance of ensuring that resources are managed properly and checks and balances are installed for this purpose. Therefore, a good auditor must always have in mind the main objective of the audit, and the steps he takes to accomplish this objective must be logical, well prioritized, and with a view to achieving long-term benefits. The Philippine Commission on Audit is one of the only three constitutionally mandated bodies that is not attached to the executive branch.

Its charter provides it a good measure of independence so that it is ensured the ability to perform its mandated functions whatever administration is elected into office. Thus, it has every reason to engage the various offices it audits in working towards improvement in control mechanisms, strengthening accountability and being transparent at all times. Disclosures in the public sector should not be different from the disclosure requirement of companies, say, in the private sector. If I may suggest, the offices covered by the public audit should also regularly exchange experiential views and solutions along these areas. Thus, redutiiing the need to play policeman. In other words, the various COA offices around the country for example may, like what you're doing here, exchange experiences, and figure out ways by which improvements, not only in COA itself but in the entities that their audit can be achieved. That way auditors instead become catalysts of national good governance.

Public audit that is of the quality that lends itself to bringing the economy to a higher plane of development is what we want. Public audit is not an end in itself, and an auditor must never arrogate unto himself powers that negatively impact on the image of public governance. Public audit is a tool, admittedly a necessary one, that those governing the polity must use and reinforce so as to achieve a greater goal. Public audit should practice the very same principles established by corporate governance advocates.

In the various definitions I have encountered, I see corporate governance focusing on boards of directors and their role in the enhancement of the value of their companies. Well, I submit that a good definition of good governance is one that emphasizes the mutually reinforcing roles that government and the private sector or business must take. Hence, we should think of good governance as the implementation of a system that defines the rules for the relationships between shareholders and other' stakeholders that include directors, managers, creditors, and the government, and secondly, providing mechanisms for enforcing these rules, among which would be public audit.

Finally, I must stress that though there is no substitute for a value system that enshrines responsibility, quality and love of country, such a system would provide a moral compass that would point government to the right direction at all times. It might of course be added that such a system should also consider the culture and level of development of the economy on which these rules must be imposed. This is not to say that ethical values are situational. It simply recognizes that good governance, which must serve as the rudder for the ship of the state, may be achieved in perhaps different ways across cultural divides and geographic boundaries even as we recognize that we are now all part of one global village.

Once again, I thank you for the honor of being able to address you this afternoon. I thank you for your kind attention. I hope that this address gives you some food for thought. Let me thank all of you. Let me thank in particular my dear friend Gem Carague for this opportunity. I hope you enjoy your stay in the Philippines. And may the rest of your conference be productive.

Thank you very much.
(Applause)

MR. MUHAMMAD YUNIS KHAN
Comptroller & Auditor-General of Pakistan

Commissioner Catli, members of the panel, Heads of SAIs, ladies and gentlemen.

It is my privilege to be presenting SAI Pakistan's perspective on quality management in public audit. Why we took the risk of giving this presentation before this august assembly and facing the music is because we think every country, and this has been repeated this morning also, has its own problem, its own issues. And while we conform with the general principles, standards, methods of the INTOSAI, of the ASOSAI, every SAI is faced with heavy problems which must be brought in full, before an assembly like this, so that we not only share our experience, we give an honest view of what we face and get some guidance, some feedback from you in order to improve and achieve the common goal of improving the quality of audit.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is about a year or just a little more than a year when I took over as Auditor General. Before that, I was the Finance Secretary. I joined the Accounts Group, that is the Pakistan Audit Account Service in 1966. And after serving for only about ten years, I went into that pool of officers selected to serve in government ministries and never came back to the department for 27 years. So for 27 years I suffered the audit from the other side. And now, I have the privilege of heading the SAI Pakistan. So therefore I have some experience of seeing things from both sides. Dr. Ocampo, who spoke in the earlier session, highlighted the image or the caricature of the auditor. He had been the Finance Secretary, and I was also the Finance Secretary. There is another villain also, and that is the Ministry of Finance. SAIs have got to conform to the rules and regulations made by the Ministry of Finance. I don't think that the auditor, and this is my personal view, I don't know what is yours, on his own, can go against the rules. Yes, he must understand the rules. He must give a positive view of the rules. But I don't think he is capable or allowed to change the rules. And I can give instances of some of our own rules in the government of Pakistan that are being changed and some of them have been changed but they are absolutely observed. One day I was traveling. We have this silly rule that the lower category of employees have to produce photo-receipts in order to claim their daily allowance, and the hotel charges. So, I asked the driver while I was going from one station to another station, a different section. I asked him in which hotel do you stay? From his waistcoat pocket he produced six different hotel slips. He said, in one of these. I said, where are these hotels? He said we get this from the administrative section. They said we just fill these up so you can draw your advance. How can the auditor handle the situation? So there are examples, but having said that, whatever view or perspective I'm trying to give would be my own personal view and the view of my colleagues in the SAI Pakistan and we hope that we do not tread on anybody's feet particularly the INTOSAI while giving these views.

Ladies and gentlemen, in our opinion, the clientele of the SAI is the public, the taxpayer and the public representatives who approve public spending and scrutinize the audit reports and the outcomes of spending. In our opinion, the challenge of quality management in public audit is to come as close as is possible to the expectations of the clientele, which I've mentioned: the public, the taxpayer and the public representatives. We are making serious efforts to reach there and we want to share with our ASOSAI colleagues some of our findings that may be of broader interest.

As part of the strategy, the Auditor General has disassociated from any direct involvement in account keeping since the last two years. Previously, although the nomenclature of my job was the Auditor General not the Comptroller and Auditor General, but he was responsible for maintaining the accounts and then auditing also. Here I must clarify that under the constitution of Pakistan, it is the Auditor General who has to prescribe the forms, the methods, and the principles of accounts. But now, a new institution is created called the Controller General of Accounts, who maintains the accounts and the pre-audit business mentioned in the previous session is no longer the Auditor General's function. SAI Pakistan recognizes the essential link between accounting and auditing. And I have told you the constitutional link that it is my office which is going to provide the principles, systems and methods of accounts, that's it.

We have launched one of the most comprehensive projects to modernize public sector accounting and auditing. Accounting reforms are being implemented through a project, which are being funded by the World Bank. It's called PIFRA - Project for Improvement of Financial Reporting and Auditing. This includes installing a national network of core accounting systems that will be based on Enterprise Resource Planning software with features of accrual reporting and the potential for upgrade to full accrual in the coming years.

We expect that sound accounting and financial reporting will provide the basis for effective auditing during the next five years. That's our plan. At the same time, we are increasing our reliance on qualitative certification of accounts not only as a means for providing assurance but for improving the quality of accounts as well. These more recent efforts to build up on earlier efforts to introduce Performance Audit on modern lines and develop sectoral audit specializations dealing with areas like revenue, construction works, procurements, power sector, etc.

We have recently been faced with the challenge posed by devolution reforms in the country. Let me very briefly touch on the devolution reforms. Previously, we were dealing with the federal government and the four provinces in Pakistan. Today we are dealing with the government, of course, and the four provinces, plus 108 district entities, which had been created by law. They are district governments. There are 104 district governments and 4 city governments. And all of them, by rule, is to give separate reports for the district governments. Then there will be of course the consolidated report for the provincial government and then of course the federal government. But this is a great challenge both from the resource point of view, from the capacity point of view as well as the infrastructure point of view.

There are also roughly 6,000 sub-district entities that will increasingly play a greater role in provision of services. The objective was to take the money, the resources down to the people. And that's why the expenditures will be incurred most of them, at a much lower level than even the district. Managing quality of audit spread over at these multiple locations and judicious allocation of resources is the most recent challenge that the SAI Pakistan faces. Coming from, again, the Ministry of Finance and when the devolution was happening, I was the Minister of Finance. And then the Auditor General was asking for more resources and I refused telling that we don't have the money. Now, I am facing them, you see. But, I mean, resources are never really available to the extent that everybody desires. Since last year, whether it was still honeymoon period, which was prevailing, I managed to get the resource and made it subject to district officers. Which are strictly independent of district account offices.

SAI Pakistan, however, feels that the challenge of public audit in the comparatively developing spectrum of ASOSAI brotherhood goes beyond the adoption of the state of the art in the profession. And I agree with this.

Challenges before SAIs. Most of the contribution in auditing as a profession has come from the auditing community working in the corporate environment as also from SAIs operating in developed economies with strong traditions of legislative accountability of the executive. Here I am specially referring to countries among those who are sitting here. Countries like Australia, New Zealand, and etcetera. Now, easiest course for SAIs is qualifying the accounts or differential. That may be an option. That you qualify all accounts and sit back. Qualifying such accounts or financial reports may be an option that will hardly satisfy any of our stakeholders. Similarly, in an environment where there is sparse tradition of operating against quantified outputs and performance criteria, even outstanding performance audit reports may not draw the response that the SAI expects from the public representatives or the media. Ladies and gentlemen, I will give one particular example here. We for 7 years were spending huge amounts of money on a program called Social Action Program. The Social had all working from every SAI, the world social sectors, on education, health, and etcetera. We build infrastructure. We build schools. We build the basic health units. There were proper accountings of these expenditures. Nothing was found wrong. World Bank carried out an independent study, an independent audit. Everything was good and proper. But the outcome was not commensurate even to the extent of 25%. There were schools but there were no students. The basic health units were built on the wrong places. So, I mean, as auditors, if we restrict ourselves only to the accounts, only to this administrative matters, then it is not an outcome-based audit. It may not satisfy the public representatives. It may not satisfy the stakeholders, although you may think that we have done our job and we have submitted our report.

The relationship between the auditor and the auditee that has also been mentioned earlier by the speaker in the morning. The relationship between the auditor and the auditee has its sensitivities even in the private sector. In the public sector, in which direct payment for the auditor's services by the auditee is not involved, the relationship between the auditor and auditee tends to move towards mistrust and can become adversarial. Quality audit output is both an outcome and a precondition, in our opinion; this again is subject to opinion. Quality audit output is both an outcome and a precondition for establishing a relationship of trust between the auditors and the auditee. Quality audit makes the audit report dependable even if they are highly critical because then the auditee would then-feel satisfied that we are trying to assist and help. But if on the other hand, if auditee thinks that we are only there to irritate him, or we are only there to pin-prick and raise irrelevant issues which may be covered by some rule or another, then that balance in the relationship between the auditee and the auditor may never be there.

While auditors are very fond of talking about the audit mandate they must realize that the auditee also has his own mandate like delivery of a service or a facility, which is the primary objective of all public spending. The audit should not become an obstacle in the way of implementation of the auditee's mandate nor should it inhibit positive decision-making by forcing the auditee in a defensive mode in which achievement of organizational objectives takes a back seat. It is usually much easier to be wiser in hindsight. In hindsight, everything is 20/20. But when people are making decisions, when people are implementing programs and this is what, the other day, the vice-president gave the example of the road being built. Was the money spent properly? Was there proper tending or not? So the auditor on one hand, as I said in the beginning, has got to conform to the rules and regulations but at the same time he should not inhibit the decision-making. Yesterday I was sharing with the Comptroller and Auditor General of India that our particular guest yesterday complained that we are inhibiting the decision making. That if audit is effective it should not, in my opinion, if it is quality audit it will never affect, adversely affect decision-making. But if, as I mentioned earlier, we are going around looking at small things and hanging people for doing things which they could have done through following one or two procedures or getting the sanctions from the Ministry of Finance or others, we must ensure that we do not lose sight of their goals or objectives in the process.

We think that frequent interaction at the senior level, regular meetings to review audit findings, fair and adequate reflection of auditee's viewpoint and acknowledgement of steps taken to take corrective action in the audit reports can help considerably in improving the quality of the final audit output. This exercise I will mention will also eliminate the procedural, the regulatory, petty, and even the legislature or the Public Accounts Committees. We will then be able to focus on the major issues based on outcomes and they will move gradually from the regulatory mode to the performance mode.

INTOSAI auditing standards have very rightly identified the full range of public audit, either the regulatory audit or the performance audit. Under the regulatory audit, the test of accountability of government as a whole, financial test of accountable entities, compliance with rules and regulations, internal controls, probity and propriety. And the performance audit, the economy, efficiency...the 3 Es. They're all there.

The challenge before Public Audit is to provide an integrated and comprehensive audit assurance covering the full range of government auditing. Methodologies must be researched and developed to cope with the hierarchical relationship of entities ranging from small operational units to large governments and complexities arising from centralized accounting networks in the certification of accounts and financial reports. Options must be found to link up regulatory audit dealing with compliance with rules and regulations and financial attest and ultimately finding a link between regularity and performance audit.

While private sector audit can contract audits in accordance with its capacity, SAIs are normally faced with the challenge of meeting the requirements of a fixed and broad ranging audit mandate with limited resources. I never understood this when I was the secretary of finance, unfortunately. This poses the challenge of doing justice to the SAI audit mandate while meeting the full range of the INTOSAI auditing standards. This calls for developing a flexible and powerful resource allocation model that can convert priorities, risk assessments, mandatory audit requirements, and stakeholder preference into a criteria driven resource allocation model. The model should have the capability of deploying audit resources not only according to annual but roll over multi-year plans as well. While professional literature abounds in material helpful for planning individual audits, very little guidance is available for planning SAI-wide or government-wide audits. This is an area in which strengthening should start with INTOSAI guidance.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we are in the process of launching a computer-based system that would help us in: dovetailing priorities of our stakeholders with statutory obligations, prioritization of entities whose audit should be conducted in a given year, and determining the adequate level of audit effort for each audit. The system is based on risk analysis and a rationally weighted perception of the budgeted spending and revenue collection.

This system will capture essential auditing information like the budgets of thousands of spending entities. The system will help the audit officers to identify priorities and lists. This information will be matched with the available audit resources and estimation scales that auditors require for audit of different types of entities. This will enable the audit planning software to allocate auditing resources in most effective manner.

While accounting is increasingly makirlg use of information technology and is now considered an almost natural IT application, audit is yet to capitalize on the power of IT. The Computer Aided Auditing Techniques (CAATs) are essentially a means to handle computerized accounting data. Some firms have developed basic software to facilitate routine audit activities like working papers, assignment plans, report generation, etc. In our opinion, the IT needs of SAIs are, however, much more complex. In an era in which Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software are becoming increasingly popular, SAIs need IT based Management Information Systems that can integrate activities like budgeting, operating, business, policy instructions of the SAI, HR data, Audit Plans, Auditee Profiles, Rules and Regulations, Audit Operations, Working Papers, Quality Assurance, Audit Reports, Audit Follow-up.

We hope to launch the second phase of the project I mentioned earlier, that will be PIFRA 2, which is an extension project under which we hope to establish an organization-wide network of Audit-MIS that will link up with the accounting databases and auditee systems that link up with internally available information such as HR data, auditee profiles, etcetera. We expect that through this systems development, a comprehensive information base will support all aspects of quality management.

In our opinion, to meet the end of quality management in public audit, all SAIs face a big challenge. The following suggestions are used for consideration. There should be recognition of the specific professional requirements of SAIs. Number 2: Environmental factors like management systems, effectiveness of the accountability arrangement, and perceptions of corruption should be factored into decisions for the audit mix. For instance, if there is considerable interest in regulatory operations of utilization of public money, all the standards of probity and propriety, adequate audit coverage should be provided for such matters. I am talking about the audit mix. Public audit should identify public concerns and the concept of timeliness of audit reports should include addressing those concerns in a timely manner. Otherwise, even most important and very important national issues can become stale and irrelevant. But if you're talking...if you're providing timely audit, you cannot provide timely information, an issue, which have taken place recently. Then in 2006 or 2007 nobody will bother about it. And that is what is actually happening.

Guidance, standards and methodologies should be developed to ensure that the assurance provided by an SAI is adequate and credible. ASOSAI may like to sponsor research that seeks to add value to the quality of public audit by meeting the specific needs of the SAIs of the region.

The path to quality management may be achieved provided we all get together, put our heads together, think what are our needs, what are our resources and then satisfy our plans because, in my view, the auditor generals, the SAIs are in a much closer scrutiny today than a few years back. Now, we are being audited also, both by the experts as well as by the media and the representatives.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)
 

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