|
Late Auditor
General
Floyd Augustine Fatai |
OAG was
shattered by the tragic death of it's Auditor General on 3rd
July 2008. Floyd was a great leader and mentor and developed OAG
to it's current strong position after years of neglect. Under
his leadership OAG went from 3 staff to 35 and numerous reports
have been tabled in Solomon Islands Parliament providing a blue
print for reform in the entities. He will be sadly missed but
left an institution determined to carry on his great work. |
|
Skills Development |
An integral
element of the Capacity Building within OAG is the
identification of skills required for staff to perform
successfully their respective duties. Again, using an Audit
Trainer all staff went through an intensive program of skills
assessment and identification of future requirements. Ongoing
assessments were undertaken in February and August 2008 which
reflected a significant improvement by several staff against the
model.
In addition to technical skills development, OAG staff have
become increasingly engaged in internal management tasks, and
have recently been fully participative in strategic planning for
the Office for the next five years Strategic Audit Plan cycle.
This exposure is intended to provide the staff with the basic
management skills required for career progression within the
Office, as well as identify potential future senior managers for
further development. |
|
Auditor General’s
Address |
In conjunction
with Transparency Solomon Islands the Auditor General gave a key
note address launching his latest Audit Report on the topic of
“An Auditor General’s Insight to Corruption within the Solomon
Islands Government.” This was part of the World anti corruption
day activities organised in December 2007. |
|
Provincial
Government Accounts |
After some fifteen years or longer of malaise, the
accountability within Provincial Governments received a boost
following implementation of the RAMSI-funded Provincial
Financial Management Improvement Project which resulted in the
catch-up of 143 financial years of accounts to 31st
March 2007 for all provinces. OAG was heavily involved in the
management of the project, as well as responsible for conducting
the audits of the later year accounts for each Provincial
Government. The impact of the project has been highly
successful, with four of the Provincial Governments having
already submitted their accounts for the financial year ended 31st
March 2008. The OAG has already undertaken audits of those
Provincial Governments and signed-off on two of those
government’s accounts, and audits are currently underway on the
remaining provinces’ accounts and records whilst waiting for
their respective financial statements. |
|
Statutory
Bodies Accounts |
As was the case for Provincial Government accounts, the
statutory bodies in many cases had not been compiling or
submitting their accounts for audit for many years. The OAG has
taken responsibility for the audits of some of the bodies which
had been audited by private firms under contract to the OAG in
past years. In addition, the majority of the State Owned
Enterprises [trading statutory bodies] are currently being
assisted under a RAMSI-funded State Owned Enterprises Accounts
Strengthening Project to bring all their accounts and audits up
to date to Financial Year 2007. The OAG has been heavily
involved in the design process of the project, and will be
responsible for managing the audits to be conducted under the
project – these audits will be undertaken by an international
audit firm under contract to the OAG. It is anticipated that
the project will be completed over the next twelve months.
Opportunities will also be taken during the project to expose
OAG staff to the international audit methodologies practiced by
this contractor firm as part of their technical skills
development. |