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Shortage of auditors in public sector to be addressed

by Barbados Today
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Government is working to fix the current shortage of auditing staff in the public service, as efforts to improve inefficiencies are intensified.

To this end, Minister in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs, Ryan Straughn, has made an appeal for help from the private sector to assist with training persons to work in the Internal Audit Department, slated to come on stream next year.

In his opening remarks at the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Barbados’ virtual Public Sector Conference, the Minister said the department would be part of government’s reform of its accounting system, as it moves to conduct more of its business digitally to eliminate ineffective practices that hamper effective financial resources management.

Straughn noted that private sector assistance to resource the department would be for three years in the first instance and would help to “build the capacity within government in order to ‘shake down’, these long-standing issues of accountability and to lift the standard with respect to how the government conducts its business”.

“The reality is this as we have seen with the audits of financial statements from the Auditor General…. as well as from private sector agencies, there seems to be an apparent shortage of auditors and, therefore, we will work with the private sector to determine what is the best approach to be able to man and resource the Internal Audit Department.

“We believe that unless we find a way such that we can leverage the expertise that does exist within the private sector, to be able to train-up people over the course of the next two to three years, to begin to build that capacity within the department.  We have to do that and therefore I am making a public call now and I have asked the Comptroller General to start those discussions,” he underlined.

The Minister also touched on the need for more efficient management data reporting and the need for greater project management skills in the public sector to execute projects more timely.

Regarding the former, Straughn acknowledged that the Auditor General’s 2021 report and those of previous years “does not make for good reading”.

He stressed that while the Minister was responsible for ensuring that the right systems were in place and resources allocated to achieve transparency and accountability, the Treasury Department and finance officials in the respective ministries were responsible for the day-to-day functioning of government’s reporting cycle.

Straughn stated: “We have sought to enhance that reporting cycle to be much more aggressive with respect to identification of issues and to be able to then follow-up as required to ensure that the Treasury is in a position, just like state owned enterprises, to report to government on a monthly basis as to the nature and extent of what is taking place within central government itself.

He continued: “That has not yet been fully completed but, it is my anticipation that by the end of the year, we should be in a position to have that reporting cycle resume, such that the same standard we are holding the state owned enterprises too, that the Treasury itself, would be in a similar position to be able to respond in kind.”

On the point of delays in the execution of projects due to a shortage of persons with the relevant skills, Minister Straughn suggested that “building capacity within government was one way to speed up the construction process”.

“But the reality of all of this is that the government itself, not just with respect to how it manages procurement or how it manages the implementation of projects within specific departments, will be critical to ensuring that the objectives for reporting ultimately back into the Public Finance Management Act, can be done in a timely basis, whether it’s an audit or just as an assessment as to whether or not we are capable of measuring and being effective with respect to commitment for results…,” he stated.

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