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Dr Eric Oduro Osae, Director General, Internal Audit Agency
Dr Eric Oduro Osae, Director General of the Internal Audit Agency (iAA), appealed to the government for a permanent office of the Agency to allow the organization to project its visibility.
He urged the government to support, re-equip and provide the Agency with a new permanent office worthy of its status to enable it to provide the required advisory and insurance service to the government in real time.
“I am also pleased to report that the IAA, working with internal auditors and audit committees across the country, saved the nation GH ¢ 235,229,749.08 in fiscal year 2020,” Dr Osae said in his welcoming speech at the opening of the 2021 annual internal audit. Conference.
The theme of the conference was “Maintaining internal control, risk management and business continuity in the public sector: the role of stakeholders”.
He reported an approximately 32% drop in annual breaches reported by the Auditor General for ministries, departments and agencies in 2020, from GH ¢ 3.0 billion in 2019 to GH ¢ 2.1 billion in 2020. , attributing the gain to the work of the internal auditors and the various audit committees.
The three-day conference is a flagship program hosted by the IAA in fulfillment of its mandate of providing a means to keep covered entities informed about challenges and oversight gaps in the execution of government business.
Dr Osae informed the conference that the Agency has also started a process of denunciation and humiliation of institutions, and has supported the prosecution of those convicted of stealing money or committing financial irregularities under the Public Financial Management Law and the Criminal Offenses Law of 1960 (Law 29).
He said the IAA has, over the years, positioned itself to fulfill its mandate by providing pragmatic advisory and insurance services to public institutions.
“The Agency spares no effort in strengthening control systems and ensuring that the entities covered use State resources wisely. “
Dr Osae urged boards of directors, key account holders and key expenditure officials to ensure compliance with the requirements of the 2016 Public Financial Management (PFM) Act, as the Agency would work in coming days through audit committees to prosecute covered entities to ensure legal compliance.
Article 7 (2) of the 2016 Public Financial Management (PFM) Law (Law 921) requires key expenditure officers (PSOs) to establish an effective risk management system, internal control and audit internal in the use of resources.
Section 90 of the law also mandates the boards of public institutions to minimize risk by establishing and maintaining appropriate risk management systems.
The IAA chief executive said the institution’s staff, as well as internal auditors in the public sector, would be happy if their salaries and terms of service were streamlined to bring them on par with their contemporaries in financial agencies. and similar tax authorities such as the Ghana Audit Service and Comptroller and Accountant General’s Department.
He called for the repeal of the current 2003 law on the internal audit agency (law 658) in order to restructure the internal audit of the public sector and to make the agency an internal audit service (IAS ).
Mr. Albert Kan-Dapaah, Minister of National Security, said internal audit plays an important role in anti-corruption efforts; saying it ensures that deviations from accounting practices have been minimized.
“The importance of internal auditing is that it prevents rot before it becomes rot,” he said.
Professor Olivia Kwapong, Dean of the School of Continuing and Distance Education, College of Education, University of Ghana, who chaired the event, urged Ghanaians to stand up for the fight against corruption at all levels to build a better nation .
She said maintaining internal controls and managing risk in the public sector is everyone’s responsibility.
Mr. Joseph Winful, Chairman of the IAA, reaffirmed that the current state of the Internal Audit Agency Act is a significant impediment to the Agency’s role of ensuring well-equipped, independent and objective internal audit functions. in the public sector.
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