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“There shall be a National Audit Office in the public service of which the Auditor General shall be the head, and the other members of which shall assist the Auditor General in the performance of the functions conferred on him or her by this Constitution or any Act of the National Assembly.” – Section 159, 1997 Constitution of The Republic of The Gambia

Public auditing is what ensures that taxpayer’s money is used in the right way, and that people’s lives are improved through the concept of accountability and governance and regulation by relevant authorities. In the Constitutional scheme of checks and balances in a democracy, the National Audit Office is established to facilitate accountability of the executive to the legislature on public spending. The concept and establishment of audit is inherent in public financial administration as management of public funds represent a trust in governance. Audit is an essential part of a regulatory system whose aim is to reveal deviations from the accepted standards of practical management of public finances.

In the Gambian system of governance, National Assembly authorizes the budget which prescribes how Government will collect money through taxes, how much that will be and for what purposes they will be used for. There are also financial rules that guide this budget execution, which public institutions are expected to follow and adhere to the framework prescribed therein, when they receive and spend public money. The spending Ministries, Departments, agencies and other statutory bodies are accountable to the National Assembly for both the quantity and quality of their expenditure.

Section 160 of the Constitution of the Republic of The Gambia prescribe a unique role for the Auditor General of The Gambia in assisting the National Assembly to enforce the legislative accountability of Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies, public enterprises and all other public bodies.

However, government accountability is not solely the responsibility of the NAO. If we want to see improved public service delivery, all stakeholders need to participate in the audit process and engage with audit reports. Using our core values, we strive for greater audit impact and excellence in public finance accounting, and in this post, we will tell you how we do that, and at what stages stakeholders can participate.

Using our Core Values to influence stakeholder engagement in the Audit Process

• Integrity, Professionalism and Teamwork

The Audit Process is a cyclical procedure, that always involves various stakeholders at different levels. At the start of the process, which should typically be around January-March after the end of the fiscal year, we engage with the Accountant General’s Department who is responsible for compiling and submitting financial statements of the government on behalf of all Ministries and Departments. Although, due to the audit backlog for the Government of The Gambia accounts which our office is close to resolving, the audit process and cycle has not followed the timeline required by The Constitution of The Gambia. Using international and customized principles and guidelines of ethical auditing for promoting transparency and accountability, our staff ensure that rather than auditees fulfilling their mandate of producing financial statements, they instead ensure that the financial statements are accurate. Throughout the audit planning, we regularly engage them and request additional documentation when needed so when we review, everything is intact for the next stages of the process. Our vision is to enhance accountability and transparency in the use of public resources for the benefit of the citizenry, to achieve this, we think about accuracy as key in public finance reporting because we must ensure that Gambians are aware of every Dalasi that should be accounted for. Regardless of the support provided by our staff, we always uphold our value of independence and showing uncompromising adherence to the strong ethical standards that guides our work and office.

Illustration of the Planning stage of the Audit Process, from the Summarised Audit Report of the Government of The Gambia Accounts for the year 2016 (See the full audit process using this link)

• Accountability

We spend months auditing financial statements that have been verified and submitted, gather further evidence, and then write our findings seeking questions and clarifications from the auditees. Typically, we can spend three months or more reporting on public accounts and how they have been managed for a specific year.

For regulatory auditing:

1. It takes usually takes between 1-2 months to review the financial statements that were submitted, the timeline is highly dependent on when the auditees submit their financial statements. Legally, this should happen between three months after the year ends. i.e March
2. After the financial statements have been reviewed, we send audit queries to the institutions in short and multiple batches at least every week. The audit queries make up the audit findings in the draft management letter, which we send to institutions and provide a timeline of two weeks to respond. Historically, institutions have requested for additional, leading up to a month to provide responses.
3. From our experience, we have had great difficulty printing, so therefore it takes between one to two months to get our final reports printed and ready for submission to the National Assembly

For Performance auditing:

1. As part of the planning, sectors are assessed or screened to enable NAO to understand their systems and processes, to determine if there are indication of problems and to also learn about current developments within the sector. This process helps NAO to identify performance audit topics.
2. The second stage as part of the planning is to carry out a pre-study. Pre-studies are carried out on selected audit topics to come up with an audit problem. Audit objectives, audit questions and assessment criteria are developed during this process. Potential audit problems are identified, ranked, and justified for selection. Possible findings and recommendations as well as logistical and administrative needs for the audit are determined.
3. Once an audit problem is selected and approved by AG, an audit is launched which follows the same process of discussions, document reviews and site visits as the Compliance audits. Once the draft report is completed, it is sent to auditees and an exit meeting to discuss the findings is carried out usually two weeks after the draft is dispatched. Management is usually given two weeks after the exit meeting to respond to the draft report which is followed by incorporation of management responses by NAO to finalize the report.

The entire process takes about 9 months if there are no delays to access documents, information, and key personnel. The timing is sometimes affected by untimely response to draft report and availability of key personnel for the meetings etc

We dedicate sufficient staff time and resources to see that our mandate is delivered, and that we report on the financial accounts and efficiency of public institutions entrusted to deliver services to Gambian citizens. At this stage of the process, our goal is that the reports we worked on for months are clear and of high-quality for the auditees to implement and the National Assembly to discuss and follow-up on our recommendations.

• Relevance

Our biggest goal is to see that our skills and standard of work translate to impact on the lives of citizens. This can happen in numerous ways, for regulatory audits, our engagement with key strategic government partners such as the Directorate of Internal Audit complements our work as a reporting institution and while working with other government partners, ensures that our audit recommendations are implemented by the various departments, agencies, and ministries. Additionally, by the National Assembly understanding and discussing our reports, they can identify areas in the management of public resources that should be followed-up on based on our audit recommendations in the reports. The NA being our main stakeholders, are crucial in achieving audit impact from our reports, and monitor the proper use of public funds backed by facts.

With increased capacity of National Assembly Members and timely discussion of reports, we trust that the impact of audit reports and findings will also increase. This means that we recognize the challenge that the complexity of our reports matched with the NAMs skills present, therefore our own skills require improvement so that our audit reports are easier to read, and be engaged with  by not only the National Assembly, but also the media, Civil Society and the public as well. Our focus is to provide the National Assembly Finance and Public Accounts Committee(FPAC), Public Enterprise Committee (PEC), as well as other committees the relevant capacity to be able to perform their oversight functions using the reports we submit.

This and other summarized report versions are a new strategy we are adapting to increase audit impact through accessibility of audit reports by our stakeholders (Read and download our summary of audit reports from here)

Creating impact for Gambians through audit reports

“The Auditor General shall after his or her annual reports on the accounts of the Government of The Gambia, of all offices and authorities of the Government, of the courts and of the National Assembly have been discussed in the National Assembly, cause the same to be published for public information. Provided that where there is any undue delay in the discussion of any such accounts in the National Assembly, the Auditor General may publish his or her report in advance of such discussion.”– 1997 Constitution of The Republic of The Gambia

The National Audit Office has been observing our mandate of ensuring public awareness of government expenditure by publishing the reports on our website at www.nao.gm and sending copies to the Gambia National Library to promote citizen’s access. Since 2020, we have improved on our publication and submission of audit reports, which is influenced by the improvement in resolving the audit backlog, and our improved engagement with stakeholders. In the future, while working closely to strengthen our relationship with the National Assembly we also aim to increase and build the media and public’s understanding of audit reporting, and why it is important for our democracy. Audit Report’s publications promote access, but their discussion ensures accountability by the implementation of audit recommendations and sanctioning where appropriate, which will not happen if reports are published, but not discussed.