VI Rep. touts Value Added Audit Functions

The British Virgin Island’s Director of Internal Audit, Wendell M. Gaskin, represented the government at the First Commonwealth Public Sector Internal Audit Conference and the Third Caribbean Thematic Brainstorming Workshop in Barbados, which ran between Wednesday and Friday last at the Crane Residential Resort.

Gaskin presented on the topic, “Building Value Added Internal Auditing Functions” at the conference and the workshop organised by the Commonwealth Secretariat in collaboration with Office of the Auditor General, Government of Barbados.

The conference was held under the theme “Embracing a Regional Approach to Public Sector Internal Audit Development”, while the workshop was themed: “Transforming Caribbean Public Expenditure: Strengthening Internal Controls and Risk Management.”

The events bring together public sector reform leaders, senior finance and audit officials from the Caribbean to share information on improving public financial management systems.

The aim of the conference is to address key issues raised at previous brainstorming workshops and also those indentified in the Commonwealth Secretariat commission study, “Public Sector Internal Audit (PSIA) in the Caribbean: Strategic Options for the Region.”

It also provided an opportunity for delegates to give consideration to key factors, including methodologies and lessons learnt in prioritising strategic options at the local and regional level.

Following the opening ceremony, Leigh Trotman, Auditor General of Barbados, told the Barbados Advocate that two of the critical areas that need to be examined are that of legislation and the harmonising of internal audit departments.

“The internal auditors face several challenges; one in particular is that there is no legislation really in many jurisdictions for internal audits. External audits have an act which clearly sets out the role and responsibilities of external auditors, but internal auditors don’t have legislation, and we think that that would help qualify their role. Another challenge they face has to do with training; there are not lots of opportunities for training in that regard provided by the departments and agencies,” he stated.

Trotman further explained that in the past, many internal auditors were involved in looking at issues that concerned payments, but the new focus of internal audits, is that an internal auditor should be more of a risk manager – examining the various aspects of the organisation and seeing how best they can mitigate risks for the organisation.

He added that too often the internal audit department is also one of the smallest of the units within a public sector entity and, as such, if someone leaves the department, it creates a problem with respect to continuity.

 “What happens in some other countries is that there is an internal audit unit, like an audit department and it is responsible for all the internal auditing in Government. In Barbados we don’t have that type of arrangement. Each internal auditor, whether it is in Inland Revenue or in Customs, they are separate and distinct persons; they are responsible to the head of the department and in the other jurisdictions you would find that there are similar situations. However, in Bermuda and Cayman Islands, for example, there are memorandums of understanding between the internal auditor and the external auditor because some of our work overlaps.

“So therefore, you would find that if there is that joining together of the internal audits under one umbrella it would be easier for us to co-operate with them and it would be good for them also in terms of continuity because there is a lot of movement in the audit profession,” he said.