Govt to revamp operations of Internal Audit Agency

The government has initiated a process to restructure the operations of the Internal Audit Agency (IAA) to enhance independence, provide adequate resources and strengthen its technical capacity.

The move is also to focus on the Internal Audit function to ensure the prevention of financial irregularities in public institutions.

“Ghana’s strategy is to embark on an ambitious structural reform agenda aimed at reinvigorating private sector-led growth by improving the business environment, governance and productivity,”

The Director-General of the ISSUE, Dr Eric Oduro Osae announced this at the opening of the 9th Governance Forum of African Federation of the Institutes of Internal Auditors (AFIIA) in Accra yesterday.

The IIA Governance Forum, on the theme: “Innovate to sustain”, is a prelude to the 9th AFIIA Conference, which will open tomorrow on the theme, as “Sustainability through innovation”.

The forum offers a rare opportunity for sharing knowledge, insights and best practices in all the organisational processes and serves as an opportunity for benchmarking and collaboration with fellow professionals.

Code
Dr Osae told the forum that Ghana was developing a unified corporate governance code to guide boards and management of public sector institutions for improved governance.

“Ghana is also restructuring and repositioning the internal audit function to be more responsive to the needs of boards and management,” he added.

Dr Osae said the restructuring also included professionalisation of the internal audit function in the public sector and that required a good partnership between the IAA and the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA).

He said the IIA Ghana, the IAA and the State Interests and Governance Authority (SIGA) had been collaborating to drive change in the public sector of Ghana “and it is yielding positive impacts.

“We believe other countries can replicate this collaborative approach and we are willing to share our experiences,” Dr Osae said.

He said the issue of new audit committee guidelines in 2023 to govern operations of audit committees and management showed “our commitment to improve governance in public institutions for efficiency and value for money in public spending.

“Since this forum targets participants with governance responsibilities, I advise board members and management to involve their internal auditors and audit committees at all levels of managerial decision making to enable them offer the best assurance and advisory services.

“That way, we can create sustainable competitive advantages that can support business growth and development,” Dr Osae advised.

Professionals
He said weak institutional structures and systems had the potential of derailing gains and success made through innovation and advised boards, management and all professionals to mainstream enterprise risk management in their operations.

He further advised them to identify risks associated with innovations and collaborate with key stakeholders to effectively manage those risks for sustainable growth and development.

Dr Osae said the development of Africa and the role of all professionals, particularly internal auditors in promoting good governance could not be overstated, adding that the African problems could only be solved by Africans, “so let us collaborate to develop common solutions to our common problems”.

He urged the participants to take opportunity of the forum to network, benchmark their practices with their peers and more important, be committed to supporting processes that helped “our organisations to create greater value through innovation.

“Together, let us build a stronger, more agile and more resilient organisations that are better equipped to tackle the challenges of today and tomorrow,” he concluded.