Vice President takes reforms to internal auditors
Vice President Saulos Chilima on Friday took the reforms agenda to internal auditors urging them to be aggressive in safeguarding institutional funds and advancing internal control measures.
He was speaking at the opening of the 2020 Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) Malawi Conference in Mangochi District held under the theme Insightful Internal Auditing; Pushing Traditional Boundaries.
Chilima said aggressive internal auditors would play a pivotal role in fighting fraud and corruption in both public and private institutions.
He said while Malawi continued to grapple with financial scandals both in public and private institutions including plunder of public resources, fraud in banks, construction companies and other institutions, internal auditors have a critical role to play and addressing the vice.
“It is therefore incumbent upon internal audit managers to consider how well the internal audit function reviews issues that matter to the organisation and to develop an audit methodology that is relevant and insightful,” Chilima said.
He said it was high time that professionals in the industry pursued the path of legislation to enhance the rules that govern the responsibility of risk management and demand a greater transparency and accountability in institutions.
Chilima said with audit legislation, the Board’s responsibility over governance, risk management and internal control will become more explicit.
“Yours is a noble function and you have huge responsibility to save and detect embezzlement of funds as well as corruption,” Chilima told the conference.
IIA Malawi president, Ackson Banda, concurred with Chilima that putting up special legislation to govern the profession is ideal this point.
For some time, lack of legal instruments to govern internal audit processes has been faulted for irregularities in management of both public and private institutions.
Malawi is yet to enact the Internal Audit Act and adopt a policy accompanying it which was drafted in 2017.
Once adopted, the law will help govern the sector and improve its effectiveness.
Failure of internal controls in both public and private organisation has been cited by commentators as a catalyst for plunder and looting of resources.
