Acquaint yourselves with the local government guidelines, Auditors urged

Mr. Oppong Fosu, Head of Local Government Service (LGS) has advised internal auditors of Municipal and District Assemblies to acquaint themselves with policies and guidelines of the Assemblies.

Mr. Fosu said this when addressing the end of a three-day workshop held in Sunyani for 50 participants drawn from all the 27 MDAs in the region, including the five newly-created districts in the region.

The programme, under the topic: “Capacity building training workshop for internal auditors of MMDAs”, was part of a nation-wide workshop being organised by LGS with sponsorship by District Development Fund (DDF) and supervised by the Regional Coordinating Council (RCC).

Mr. Fosu said the Local Government Act 462, Legislative Instrument (LI) 1961, and other relevant official documents are necessary learning information sources that could help the auditors in their work.

He said such workshops were also to serve as orientation training for internal auditors in the newly-created MMDAs throughout the country.

Mr. Fosu expressed the hope that participants had acquired useful lessons in their roles as professional internal auditors to avoid any conflicts with management of the Assemblies.

He said previous Assemblies operated efficiently with the LI 1961 saying, with the decentralization of Local Government system and some level of powers now given to the various Assemblies it behoved on the authority of the LGS to create necessary awareness of internal auditors in that direction to enhance their performance.

He said with the decentralization system, the Assemblies are expected to deliver the services in their own areas socially and economically instead of the central government as used to be, noting that the internal auditors therefore need to upgrade their knowledge and skills to be able to do the job.

“Auditors are part of management structure. You are not there as an investigator but rather to advise the management on the operations of the Assembly”, the head of the LGS said.

Earlier, Mr. Ishmael Amponsah, Training Manager and leader of a two-member Resource Personnel of the Programme both of whom work at the Internal Audit Service (IAS) in Accra, told newsmen that besides Brong-Ahafo Region, five other regions had already benefited from the programme namely, Ashanti, Upper East, Upper West, Northern and Western Regions.

Regions yet to have their chances of the Programme are Volta, Greater Accra, Eastern and Central, Mr. Amponsah added.

He said Internal Auditing is an independent, objective assurance and consulting activity designed to add value and improve an Organisation’s operations.

It also helps its employer to accomplish its objectives by bringing a systematic, disciplined approach to evaluate and improve the effectiveness of risk management, control, and governance processes, Mr. Amponsah added.

He said participants were educated on the “Nature of Internal Audit Work”, “The rules of conduct for Internal Auditors”, and “The need for continuing education for Internal Auditors”.**