30th April 2018 Australian High Commissioner to Tonga H.E. Mr. Andrew Ford opened a weeklong workshop on the Introduction to ISSAI (International Standards of Supreme Audit) Compliance Assessment Tools (iCATs) Stage 2 for the Staff of the Auditor General’s Office this morning at Tanoa International Dateline Hotel.
The workshop is stage 2 of SAI (Supreme Audit Institution) Level ISSAI Implementation Support Program that started in Tonga in July of last year, funded by the Government of Australia under the ‘Support for the External Oversight Function of the Public Financial Management (PFM) System in Tonga’.
The project provides support to the Tonga Office of the Auditor General as well as the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the Legislative Assembly of Tonga.
Mr. Andrew Ford told participants that by the end of the workshop he hoped that SAI Tonga will have progressed with adoption of the methodology for financial and compliance audits and will be ready to use the ISSAI methodologies in the pilot audits.
He urged them to always remember their commitment to transparent, accountable, effective, and efficient use of public sector resources in the Pacific.
“This ensures that government dollars reach their intended recipients, PASAI contributes to that goal by helping its member SAIs improve the quality of public sector auditing in the Pacific to uniformly high standards.”
Auditor General of Tonga Mr. Sefita Tangi said the project will boost and equip the Staff of the Office of the Auditor General in Tonga with skills and abilities on how to do the work and how to apply these skills to meet the International Auditing Standards.
He said that the first stage was the mapping of the work in TOAG in three different streams, which are financial, compliance and performance audit.
“After the first stage was completed we were able to conduct reports and were able to identify the weaknesses and strengths. Stage II we will be doing one or two sample audits within these stream starting from mapping to preparing the final report.
The Supreme Audit Institute Level ISSAI Implementation Support (SLIIS) is one of the few activities that are left to be completed under the project. It is the second stage of the implementation of the international auditing standards called ISSAIs.
Stage II is expected to be completed by May next year. Senior Officials from INTOSAI and PASAI are currently attending the workshop to facilitate and assist TOAG in this workshop.
ENDS
Issued by the Ministry of Meteorology, Energy, Information, Disaster Management, Environment, Climate Change and Communication