AUDITOR-GENERAL OUTLINES RECENT DEVELOPMENTS ON REFORMS AND PROGRESS

HIS OFFICE HAS PREPARED ITS ANNUAL REPORTS FOR 2016 AND 2017. Their Strategic Plan for FY 2018-FY2020 has been put into place and delivery of the plan is being monitored.

Parliament has approved a single-line budget for the OAG for FY 2017-2018. This means that the Auditor-General has greater flexibility in carrying out his functions as provided in the Constitution. However, to ensure proper accountability and transparency is maintained in expenditure of taxpayer funds, several policies have been put into place to guide the Auditor-General in making sound financial decisions.

More than six months has passed since my last media release in which, I amongst other things, had stated that “…reforms are underway to modernise the audit process and audit methodology…” I also indicated that the Office of the Auditor-General (OAG) will improve its strategy for internal and external communication.

I am pleased to inform all stakeholders that significant progress has been made in these reforms, details of which are discussed below.

Stakeholders

A Communication Strategy has been put into place. The purpose of this strategy is to share knowledge, disseminate information, create an understanding between staff, management and all stakeholders, facilitate decision making and support the achievement of the OAG’s operational and strategic goals;

Parliament has approved a single-line budget for the OAG for FY 2017-2018. This means that the Auditor-General has greater flexibility in carrying out his functions as provided in the Constitution. However, to ensure proper accountability and transparency is maintained in expenditure of taxpayer funds, several policies have been put into place to guide the Auditor-General in making sound financial decisions;

In addition to the above, Ministry of Economy has advised that the OAG needs to acquire the required software to process and record our financial transactions including payroll.

The OAG sees this as a very positive development in regards to the independence of the AuditorGeneral as processing of payroll and financial reporting for the OAG are currently provided by Ministry of Economy;

The OAG has prepared its Annual Reports for 2016 and 2017;

OAG Strategic Plan for FY 2018-FY2020 has been put into place and delivery of the plan is being monitored. Copies of the plan has been provided to members of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts;

Our People

To bridge the gap between the OAG and the private sector, medical insurance as a benefit, has been introduced.

In addition, an open and transparent performance management system has been established to reward high achievers and assist every staffs in tracking and improving their performance;

Training plans have been developed for individual staffs which is based on the Competency Matrix developed by the International Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI).

With the assistance of Pacific Association of Supreme Audit Institutions (PASAI) and INTOSAI Development Initiative and other training providers, several staffs have received local and overseas training.

From the funding allocated by Parliament, inhousetraining has also been organised in areas such as use of technology to extract and analysedata and development of soft skills;

To ensure that the salaries of staff of the Office of the Auditor-General are in accordance with the market, a Job Evaluation Exercise has recently been completed and necessary submissions are being made to Ministry of Economy for implementation.

Our Methodology

On February 6, 2018, members of the media witnessed the opening of the Performance Audit Workshop by His Excellency, Velelo Kwepile, Charge De Affaires, South African High Commission.

Following completion of this workshop, staffs of the Office of the Auditor-General would have enhanced skill-sets to carry out high-quality and value-adding performance audits.

This includes delivering the responsibilities of the Office of the Auditor-General as described in the Institutional Framework for Monitoring and Evaluation in the 5-year and 20-year National Development Plan for Fiji.

The Performance Audit Workshop is the second in the series of three workshops which will be facilitated through the assistance of the Secretariat of African Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions for English speaking countries (AFROSA-E). A workshop on Financial Auditing was conducted in March 2017.

Audit Manuals developed following these workshop are used by the staff of the Office of the Auditor-General in carrying out audits. Formal request will also be made to AFROSAI-E Secretariat to assist in facilitating a workshop on Compliance Auditing later this year.

The advantage of aligning our methodology to that developed by AFROSAI-E is that the audit manuals are aligned to International Standards for Supreme Audit Institutions (ISSAIs) issued by INTOSAI. Moreover, the Auditor-General’s mandate includes carrying outfinancial, performance and compliance audits;

A Quality Assurance Review team has been established to carry out on-going reviews of audits as per the requirements of ISSAI.

This is an addition to quality controls built-into the audit methodologies and procedures adopted by the Office of Auditor-General.

Our Website

OAG’s website (www.oag.gov.fj) was developed in 2014 and has outlived its purpose.

OAG has since revamped the website which will allow the Office to deliver its Communication Strategy and provide for greater interaction with all our stakeholders.

The upgraded website will also allow for more awareness on the roles and functions of the Auditor-General and Office of the Auditor-General. Therefore the website is considered an integral part of the Auditor-General’s function.

OAG is currently awaiting necessary clearance for launching of the revamped website.

The OAG Strategic Plan for FY 2018-FY2020 and approved policies would be available in the revamped website.

Finally, the format of the Auditor-Generals reports to Parliament has been aligned to those adopted by National/State Audit Offices in Australia and New Zealand.

It is anticipated that the revised format would promote better understanding of the contents of these reports by all stakeholders.