News
IDI issues statement on recent events at the Office of the Auditor General of the Union in Myanmar
10/03/2021
IDI expresses its concern over the Office’s independence and the recent replacement of the Auditor General
The INTOSAI Development Initiative (IDI) has today released a statement on recent worrying developments at the Office of the Auditor General of the Union Myanmar.
The statement, signed by IDI Director General Einar Gørrissen, expresses concern about the continuing independence of the Office of the Auditor General of the Union of Myanmar, including the safety of its staff, following the state of emergency established by the military. Concern is also expressed about the consequent replacement of the Auditor General of the Union.
Strong, independent supreme audit institutions are necessary elements in every country to foster rule of law, good governance, transparency and accountability. IDI stands ready to support the Office of the Auditor General of the Union in upholding the principles recorded in the Lima and Mexico Declarations
The full statement can be read here: IDI Statement on Myanmar (March 10 2021)
This statement is issued as part of IDI’s SAI Independence Rapid Advocacy Mechanism (SIRAM), which provides advocacy support to SAIs facing potential challenges to their independence. SIRAM is managed by the Independent SAIs work stream, which can be contacted at independent.sai@idi.no.
IDI is the capacity development arm of the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions. We have a global mandate to enhance the capacity and performance of developing country SAIs and to advocate for the independence of SAIs. For more information, please see our Introduction to IDI. For additional comments, please get in touch with IDI.
Introducing IDI Board member, Tsakani Maluleke (Auditor General of South Africa), with some timely thoughts on gender balance and female leadership
Part of IDI’s “Meet our Board Members” series
Appointed to the IDI Board in November 2020 and attending her first meeting on March 25 2021, IDI is delighted to welcome Tsakani Maluleke, South Africa’s Auditor General, to the Board.
The Board meeting is far from being her only ‘first’. She is the first woman to hold the position of Auditor General in the supreme audit institution’s 109-year history, and she was also the first female deputy Auditor General.
Her background as a Chartered Accountant spans more than 20 years, with experience in both the private and public sectors, and in areas as diverse as auditing, consulting, corporate advisory, development finance, investment management and skills development agencies. She is currently the non-executive chairperson of the board for the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA).
Tsakani’s career is motivated by a passion to actively contribute to advancing black men and women in the accountancy profession. She has pursued this passion through her work with various organisations including Business Unity South Africa, African Women Chartered Accountants, and the Association for the Advancement of Black Accountants of Southern Africa (Abasa), of which she is a past president.
Her commitment to service excellence and ethical leadership and her contribution to transformation has been recognised and awarded by the Presidents of ABASA, AWCA and Black Management Forum (BMF). Tsakani is a fellow and moderator of the African Leadership Initiative and the Aspen Global Leadership Network.,
As part of IDI’s week of gender focus following International Women’s Day on 8 March 2021, and in a year of COVID-19 challenges, Tsakani answered a few questions posed by IDI (and other media!), Click here to access the full article.
The IDI SPMR Implementation and Reporting eLearning course is taking place from 1 March to 22 April. Over 60 participants from 10 ASOSAI members will be taking part in this course.
The advisors team consists of three IDI staff from the SAI Governance Department, one staff member from SAI Bhutan and a staff member from SAI Guam as in-kind support to the initiative.
At the beginning of 2019 IDI started the roll-out of the IDI-ASOSAI Strategy, Performance Measurement and Reporting (SPMR) initiative. This initiative is aimed at supporting SAIs to better plan, monitor and manage their performance throughout an entire strategic management cycle, by implementing a sound strategic and operational planning process and establishing an effective monitoring and reporting framework.
The programme’s rationale is that SAIs should develop and maintain a strategic planning and management process that enables them to achieve strategic outcomes and deliver value and benefits to the citizens. The overall purpose of this course is to support the participating SAIs in setting up a monitoring and reporting system to monitor the implementation of their strategic plans and reporting on performance.
IDI encourages all parties to create a conducive environment in which the Principles of the Mexico Declaration are honored so that the Audit Office can effectively carry out its role.
The INTOSAI Development Initiative (IDI) has today released a statement regarding recent efforts by the Audit Office of the Republic of Cyprus to access information in connection to their audit work of the Cyprus Investment Program.
The statement, signed by IDI Director General Einar Gørrissen, expresses concern following limitations which have hampered the Audit Office’s efforts to obtain timely, direct and free access to all the necessary documents and information for the proper discharge of its responsibilities.
The statement notes that such limitations are contrary to the spirit of Principle 4 of the Mexico Declaration, which calls for SAIs to have unrestricted access to information. It also notes that such limitations can also negatively affect other principles of SAI independence, such as Principle 5 on the right and obligation of SAIs to report on their work and Principle 6 on the freedom to SAIs to determine the content and timing of audit reports, as well as the timing of their publication and dissemination.
The full statement can be read here: IDI Statement on Cyprus (Feb 24 2021)
IDI has been working with the Audit Office of Cyprus as part of its SAI Independence Rapid Advocacy Mechanism (SIRAM), which provides advocacy support to SAIs facing potential challenges to their independence. SIRAM is managed by the Independent SAIs work stream, which can be contacted at independent.sai@idi.no.
IDI is the capacity development arm of the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions. We have a global mandate to enhance the capacity and performance of developing country SAIs and to advocate for the independence of SAIs. For more information, please see our Introduction to IDI. For additional comments, please get in touch with IDI.
The INTOSAI Development Initiative (IDI) will be conducting an eLearning SAI PMF Review workshop from 15 to 26 January 2021.
The review workshop which will be attended by sixteen participants, is a follow up on the progress of the SAI PMF assessments currently being conducted by four SAIs participating in the IDI/CAROSAI SAI PMF facilitation programme. After the SAI PMF basic training course conducted in May 2020, the assessment teams proceeded to the field work and reporting stages of the assessment process. The field work focused on collecting evidence while the reporting stage focused on drafting some selected chapters of the SAI PMF report. The IDI provided remote support to the assessment teams throughout these stages. An external resource person and two managers from the IDI will be facilitating this workshop.
The review workshop is intended to provide an opportunity to the assessment teams to write, revise and correct as appropriate, the completed draft sections of the SAI PMF. In addition, the assessment teams will be required to identify the key strengths and weaknesses in SAI performance and to conduct a root cause analysis, establishing the interlinkages between the different aspects of SAI performance. The ultimate objective of the workshop is to finalise the full draft SAI PMF reports and have them ready for an independent review by the IDI.
It is anticipated the final SAI PMF reports which include an independent review statement issued by the IDI, will be ready by 31 May 2021.
In our continuing cooperation with PASAI on IDI-PASAI Financial Statements of Governments (FSG) Audit Initiative, SAIs of Fiji, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, and Vanuatu signed an MoU with PASAI and IDI.
The support under this initiative covers ISSAI Implementation Needs Assessment for Financial Audit, and to audit of Financial Statements of Governments following ISSAIs. A week-long workshop which was the beginning of this support was delivered to a total of 43 participants. Owing to the current COVID-19 pandemic, the support for needs assessments and audits will be provided mostly online through a virtual workspace. IDI and PASAI jointly created this workspace, which is hosted on PASAI Learning Management System (LMS).
The support to SAIs of Tuvalu and Solomon Islands commenced in 2020 and is currently ongoing. The support to SAIs of Samoa and Tonga will commence from October 2021 making a total of eight SAIs participating in this initiative.
The National Audit Chamber (NAC) of South Sudan has developed a Compliance audit manual and kick-started key compliance audits
A key priority for the South Sudan National Audit Chamber (NAC) is to enhance the quality and impact of its audit services. The NAC has therefore successfully customized a Compliance audit manual to guide NAC audit teams in delivering quality compliance audits. This manual is in line with international standards and is currently being used for high priority audits
In collaboration with peers from AFROSAI-E, OAG Kenya and the INTOSAI Development Initiative (IDI), the NAC embarked on customization of the AFROSAI-E Compliance audit working papers in January 2020, which would enable proper documentation of the Compliance audit process. Given the financial challenges at the NAC, the organization currently lacks an automated auditing system and hence relies highly on manual working papers. The customization of these working papers is hence a critical step in ensuring a high-quality process within the NAC.
The audit teams have identified key compliance audit subject matters, which form the basis of the audit and were integrated into the NAC’s annual audit plan. Key subject matters include Preparation and submission of financial statements, staff recruitment procedures and procurement of goods and services, which cut across various Government ministries. Specific subject matters were also identified for some Government agencies for example, collection and accounting for non-oil revenue under the Ministry of Finance and assessing the tendering procedures for oil companies under the Ministry of Petroleum.
Compliance audit teams were formed to handle the various subject matters with guidance from the peers. During the year, the peers further guided on the customization of the different sections of the AFROSAI-E template, which culminated in the completed NAC customized Compliance audit manual.
A follow up hybrid training workshop was held in February 2021, to re-emphasize the Compliance audit methodology to the NAC staff in line with the customized manual and working papers and to follow up on the status of the on-going audits. The audits are currently in the planning phase but have been partly affected by the Covid-19 situation in South Sudan.
The completion of these audits with the guidance of the new Compliance audit manual, will go a long way in enabling the NAC to achieve its objectives of delivering high quality audit reports and strengthening compliance with the national legal framework within the Government of South Sudan.
The development of the Compliance audit manual was done through the NAC Strategic Change Project. The NAC Strategic Change project is a collaboration of NAC, the INTOSAI Development Initiative, OAG Kenya and AFROSAI-E. Funding is provided by the Norwegian embassy.
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For more information on IDI’s work in South Sudan, click here. |
IDI launched its SAI Innovations initiative in November 2020 to highlight the importance of seeking to adopt new innovations and finding new solutions to SAIs to stay relevant for the benefit of all. In SAI Innovations we embrace horizontal sharing of ideas and innovations.
Throughout this initiative we highlight that the innovations always should fit to the context, capacities and purpose, and that innovations can happen in multiple layers and be seen from different perspectives – an institutional and a people perspective, from technological and social perspective. (Please read more: https://idi.no/news/relevant-sais/sai-innovations/the-idi-held-two-webinars-for-sai-innovations-on-24th-and-25th-november)
In the SAI Innovations Marketplace events we are happy to invite our colleagues and stakeholders to share their experiences to support the SAI community in our common journey to go FAR (Flexible, Agile, Resilient). We started the year 2021 with the Marketplace event by SAI Brazil on January 20th, in which Ms Carla Motta shared the experience of SAI Brazil’s innovation Lab (coLAB-i) and the 10 steps for innovating developed by them.
SAI Brazil’s Innovation Lab was created in in the beginning of 2015 to bring innovation to the institution in order to face the challenges of the VUCA (Vulnerable, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguity) world we live in. How to tackle the changing culture and mindsets, and to overcome obstacles that might come along the way in order to be able to deliver more effective products and services and their main projects.
Finally, SAI Brazil also shared us with their 10 steps of success for innovating:
1. Sponsorship
2. Collaboration
3. Inspiration
4. Capacity building
5. Early adopters
6. Safe environment
7. Communication
8. Partnership
9. Error acceptance
10. Attitude
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We are currently creating SAI Innovations library where you can soon find all the materials from the events, more information will follow soon.
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SAI Innovation series will continue in February – March, more information will follow soon.
The State Audit Office (SAO) of the Republic of Latvia affirmed its support to Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) on the African continent. The SAO and the INTOSAI Development Initiative (IDI) signed an agreement for the funding aiming at developing capacity and help SAIs in Africa.
The SAO has already supported IDI’s bilateral work in the SAI of Gambia. “We are delighted to enhance our engagement and contribute to stronger SAIs in the entire region”, Ms. Elita Krūmiņa, Auditor General of the State Audit Office of Latvia, emphasised.
The funding will support SAIs in Africa in sustainably enhancing their performance and capacities. It seeks to help SAIs in becoming more effective, accountable and inclusive institutions and to face issues such as COVID-19 or more long-term challenges.
“It is great to see the SAO supporting SAIs in Africa as a peer institution. Our success depends to a large extent on peer support from SAIs – be it financial or in kind”, Mr. Einar Gørrissen, Director General of IDI, shows himself convinced.
The SAO plans to support IDI between 2021 and 2024. Support will be based on IDI’s Strategic Plan 2019-2023 and annual operational plans covering IDI’s engagement in Africa.
It is with great pleasure that we present to you the final Version 1 of the SAI Strategic Management Handbook.
The SAI strategic management handbook aims to provide step by step, user-friendly guidance for strategic management, from performance assessment and strategic planning through operational planning, performance measurement and reporting that reflects recent developments and latest thinking. It is particularly relevant in the context of COVID-19, which has highlighted the importance of strong SAI strategic management practices that contribute to transforming SAIs to organisations that thrive in uncertainty and seize new opportunities.
The document was prepared in the framework of IDI’s Strategy, Performance Measurement and Reporting (SPMR) initiative that has been supporting over 40 SAIs in the area of strategic management since 2017.
As an IDI Global Public Good (GPG), this handbook follows the requirements of Protocol for Quality Assurance of IDI’s GPGs from 2019. The document has been put out for public exposure for 90 days in each official INTOSAI language, as required by the protocol. The team reviewed and addressed all comments received during the exposure period. Please find the disposition table of comments here.
The IDI would like to thank the experts from the SAI community that provided invaluable contributions towards developing and testing the SPMR approach on strategic management that lies at the heart of this handbook. The process and methodology suggested in the handbook were piloted by SAIs in the Pacific and Caribbean regions of the International Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI).
The global roll-out of the SPMR initiative, including the development of this handbook, is co-funded by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO).
