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 Mr Ernest Wiafe
Mr Ernest Wiafe

Auditors in public service want autonomy to expose corrupt deals

The Internal Auditors Association, Ghana, has called for an independent internal audit system that will function better to facilitate the national effort to address corruption.

The President of the association, Mr Ernest Wiafe, who made the call on behalf of the association, said corruption was growing in the country because internal auditors in the public service were unable to be objective in performing their duties for fear of being victimised.

 Sharing some of the operational challenges facing public service internal auditors with journalists in Accra yesterday, Mr Wiafe said the government could make internal auditors in the public sector independent by putting them under a management body similar to that of the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department (CAGD).

He explained that making internal auditors in the public sector independent would help curb public sector corruption from the source or at organisational levels.

He said the current arrangement where internal auditors in the public sector were employed and directly came under the control and management of the public service did not allow them to be independent and objective.

Free from interference

Mr Wiafe said internal audit activity must be free from interference in determining the scope of internal auditing, performing work and communicating results.

He explained that if internal auditors were made to better function by making them independent, they would become more objective and corruption would be on the decline.

“Internal auditing is usually expressed as the eyes and ears of owners and management of businesses. This is because, like the owner, the internal auditor is to look at every part of the organisation’s business from the standpoint of increasing efficiency and value creation,” he said.

He, therefore, underscored the need to make internal auditors independent to ensure that they were not compromised by their association with the entities they served.

“This will decrease the number of financial mismanagement cases that are brought before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament because the right fiscal decisions will be taken at the organisational levels, without compromise and room for corruption,” he said.

Constitution Review Commission recommendation

Mr Wiafe said the request was contained in the recommendations of the Constitution Review Commission but was yet to be implemented.

“One of the cardinal tenets of effective internal auditing is independence. Independence is the freedom from conditions that threaten the ability of the internal audit activity to carry out its responsibilities in an unbiased manner,” he said.

He was of the opinion that making internal auditors independent would make them function better to nip corruption in the bud from the organisational levels and collectively address the national canker.

He said if financial checks and controls on public officers were strengthened at organisational levels, public officers would be up and doing to avoid indulging in corrupt practices for fear of being given away.

Compromise

Making a contribution, another executive member of the association, Mr Maxwell Asare-Brewu, quoted the adage: ‘You don’t bite the figures that feed you’ to substantiate the fact that, for no fault of theirs and for fear of victimisation and intimidation, some members of the association had compromised the ethics of the profession to keep their jobs and posts.

He said internal auditors were within organisations and were privy to all the bad financial management practices but because they were employed by the public sector and were directly under its control, it was difficult to remain objective.

Improve conditions of service

The two executive members, in their remarks, called on the government to improve the conditions of service for internal auditors to make the profession attractive to many.

They were of the opinion that if nothing was done about their conditions of service, in the near future there would be no professionals in the profession.

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