How do you support an audit institution in a country where operational budgets are unreliable, salaries are delayed, and the political landscape is fragile? Since 2020, IDI has worked with the National Audit Chamber (NAC) of South Sudan, alongside the Office of the Auditor General of Kenya and AFROSAI-E, to help strengthen the institution’s ability to deliver public audits. Despite numerous challenges, NAC has remained committed to its mandate of improving public financial management and contributing to better governance.
To understand the results of this long-term effort, our team of partners commissioned Oslo Economics to conduct an independent evaluation of the Strategic Change Project (SCP) 2020–2024. The findings are clear: the project has been relevant, effective and efficient. With a flexible and cost-conscious approach and great support from partner institutions, the SCP has helped the supreme audit institution maintain operations, build internal capacity, and strengthen key areas such as audit quality, governance, and stakeholder engagement.
Most importantly, the support has enabled NAC to continue producing high-quality audits—even in the absence of financial autonomy.
Three key documents tell the story of this collaboration and its outcomes:
📄 Term-end Evaluation Report of Support to the SAI of South Sudan: NAC SCP 2020-2024
📄 IDI Management Response to the End-term review
📄 NAC SCP Final Project Report
These insights reflect the value of flexible support in complex environments and the resilience of supreme audit institutions and the individuals working to strengthen accountability, who do so against the odds.
To learn more about our project in South Sudan, please visit our country page.
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. |
