News Update

On October 13, 2023, the National Audit Office (NAO) held a one-day interaction at the Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara International Conference Centre, with critical stakeholders from the Executive, National Assembly, and other oversight bodies, to discuss the work of the NAO to strengthen collaboration with each stakeholder for the realization of the needed audit impact.

The engagement was attended by the Secretary-General and Head of Civil Service, Permanent Secretary, Office of the President, Chairpersons of the National Assembly standing committees (FPAC and PEC committees), officials from the Accountant General Department, Internal Audit, Public Finance Management, Gambia Police Force, National Assembly Service, and other oversight bodies such as the Financial Reporting Oversight Board.

In her keynote address, the Secretary-General and Head of Civil Service (Salimatou Touray) commended the NAO for the initiative to call for a dialogue on audit matters. She highlighted NAO’s important role in strengthening the Gambia’s public finance administration and governance through its work. She called on all public institutions to prioritize the review of audit reports and ensure the audit recommendations are implemented as that would lead to the realization of ‘audit impact’.

The Auditor General (Modou Ceesay) shared that engaging in sustained stakeholder engagements is rooted in NAO’s Strategic Development Plan (2020 – 2024) and key to the realization of its four (4) strategic goals.

The discussions of the event centered on:

• Overview and introduction to the functions of the Auditor General and the NAO by extension.
• Perspective on public sector auditing (looking at the different types of audits conducted by the NAO, the audit process, and meanings of the different financial audit opinions; and
• The challenges faced by the NAO in the audit service delivery and overview of recurring audit findings.

The following recommendations were shared as a way forward in addressing the challenges for greater audit impact:

• The Permanent Secretaries and Vote Controllers ensure their institutions review, act on, and implement audit recommendations.
• All public institutions to ensure they have an audit implementation committee that will be responsible for the review and following through with the audit recommendation.
• Continuous dialogue between the relevant institutions for the adoption of a standard financial reporting standard for agencies to ensure consistency in their financial reporting.
• Government ministries to start preparing their own financial statements for greater accountability instead of the AGD which causes further delays in addressing audit queries, etc.
• Institutions to ensure that their budgets are tied to the National Development Plan
• Continuous engagement between the National Assembly, Executive, and the National Audit Office to review audit services delivery areas still needing redress, etc.
• The SG recommended that the PMO and PSC consider including a segment on auditing in their induction training for new public servants so that the concept of auditing and expectations of officials of the public institutions can be shared with the new intakes.
• The performance contracts of public institutions to include timely submission of financial statements which continues to be a major challenge for the NAO and delays the completion of audit timelines.
• The NAO is to engage with the Office of the Inspector General of Police and the FPAC and PEC to discuss the process flow for reported fraud charges submitted to the IGP for further investigation.

The event concluded with positive notes from the participants including the Secretary-General who vouched to give all necessary support and priority to audit reports and implementation of the audit reports and called for the NAO to continue with the stakeholder dialogues for all parties to discuss the audit and related PFM matters.