— five performance audit reports also submitted 

THE Auditor General’s report for the year 2021 was on Monday handed over to the Speaker of the National Assembly, Manzoor Nadir.

Auditor General Deodat Sharma handed over the report for the fiscal year ending 31 December 2021 to the Speaker at the Parliament Building where it was noted that the report will soon be laid in the National Assembly and subsequently become a public document.

Delivering brief remarks, Sharma noted that it was a pleasure to present his 18th report as Auditor General, even as he mentioned that the presentation marks his 11th consecutive occasion that the Audit Office has been submitting reports by the statutory deadline.

However, along with the Auditor General’s report, five performance audit reports were presented to the Speaker of the House. These are the Management of Medical Waste at Hospitals; the Management of Drugs and Medical Supplies at the Ministry of Health and Health Facilities; the Receipt, Storage, and Distribution of Textbooks to schools; the Review of Training Programmes Established and Developed by the Council of Technical and Vocational Education and Training and Guyana’s Preparedness for Marine Oil Spill Response.

Additionally, the Auditor General mentioned that during the year, along with the regular audits there was a rollout of a number of cash grants, including the “Because We Care,” disability cash grant, and the hinterland and riverain grants, among others.

REAL-TIME AUDITS
He said this meant that the team of auditors was engaged in real-time audits to ensure that the objectives of the activities were achieved.

“These real-time audits also provided us with an opportunity to witness first hand, the process, and there is no better audit evidence than first-hand witness. The execution of these audits is not without their challenges, but the dedication of the audit office staff made it possible,” Sharma said.

To this end, the Auditor General told those gathered that to foster better efficiency at the Audit Office of Guyana, training, and development for staff continue to be utilised to ensure the provision of cost-effective service through the implementation of the most up-to-date audit practices.

VIRTUAL TRAINING
As such, Sharma noted that this year, the office successfully hosted its first virtual training which targeted 50 audit clerks for the Auditing Technician Programme.

Further, he mentioned that the office continues to partner with the Canadian Auditing and Accountability Foundation to strengthen the office’s capacity to conduct performance audits.

Speaker of the National Assembly, Manzoor Nadir, commended the Audit Office for its timely completion and handing over of the report and the inclusion of the five performance audits.

“And the performance audits is designed to give an objective, critical, impartial analysis of the processes so that we can get more efficiency out of the system,” he said, while adding that it has been quite some time since performance audits have been submitted.

Nadir noted that these can be used for all accounting units to look at their system and the observations made to improve their systems.

The Speaker lauded the office for its progression over the years and the way that it has used its limited resources that have been allocated to provide more oversight of the public purse and the use of public funds.