Caribbean auditors urged to identify regional gaps

As the 11th Caribbean Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (CAROSAI) Congress opened on Monday morning IN Georgetown, People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Presidential Candidate and Public Accounts Committee Chairman Irfaan Ali urged regional leaders to analyse the existing gaps that would, in turn, help their respective countries to leapfrog into the future.
The official opening ceremony of the five-day regional conference was held at the Ramada Georgetown Princess Hotel.
The event is being hosted from June 23 to June 27, under the theme “Vision of Performance; for Relevance and Success”.
According to Ali, “For us to understand this vision, we have to have a perfect analysis of the gaps that exist in the Region and these gaps do not necessary have to do only with audit – [it may be] governmental gaps, national development priorities and differences within the Region itself and how our audit institutions and our audit framework is aligned to national development and regional development.”
In this regard, he told the regional gathering that emerging issues have to be dealt with, which may even include climate change.
“To ensure success, we have to have professionalism, we have to have trust, the population must trust the audit office, we have to ensure there is independence and that independence must be safeguarded and supported by all kinds. We have to build … institutional capacity. We have to ensure we have the right human resources trained and placed in the right places,” he recommended.
Eighteen countries are participating in the 11th Congress.
Auditor General Deodat Sharma explained the reason behind the conference. “This Congress aims to highlight the incredible contributions of members of [Supreme Audit Institutions] SAIs and success stories that would help to forge a better future for the SAIs,” he said.
He explained that the presentations over the next few days will be centred on performance audits, debt management to investment needs, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in an effort to strengthen the countries’ values of professionalism, credibility, and accountability among others.
Meanwhile, Program Officer at the Canadian Audit and Accountability Foundation, Marc Belanger shared how happy he was to be in Guyana and how timely such a forum was.
“The theme, “Vision of Performance; for Relevance and Success” is a very timely and topical one given the pressures on Governments and SAIs. The sessions over the next few days will reflect this theme.
Those who attended yesterday’s (Sunday) executive workshop on root cause analysis saw just how much we need to focus on accountability in our performance on audit work,” Belanger pointed out.
The packed event will allow these delegates to review the Organisation’s achievements over the period 2016 to 2019, analyse data, discuss the SDGs and foster conversations on strengthening human resources and use of technology to improve the quality of public sector auditing among other issues.
On the last day of the meeting, the visitors will get a taste of the world’s best eco-tourism destination through a visit to a popular nature resort.