Accra, May 15, GNA - Leadership of the Internal Audit Association of Ghana (IAAG) has called on government to pay attention to internal auditing personnel to ensure that they work to help eliminate financial malfeasance within the public sector.
The leadership said if internal auditing was well structured and the personnel catered for properly, they could help do away with the public sector financial malfeasances that always appeared at the Public Account Committee of Parliament.
Speaking to journalists in Accra on Monday, Mr Ernest B. Wiafe, President of the IAAG and Mr Maxwell Asare-Brewu, Executive Member of the Association, both said government should review the entire operations of internal audit to enable the professionals play their roles more effectively and objectively.
Mr Wiafe said: “It is only the internal audit, which is a preventive mechanism to check financial malfeasance in the public sector”.
He noted the current situation where internal auditors were employed as civil servants within the Ministries, Departments and Agencies, where they work and were paid “five times lower than the internal accountant” do not create an atmosphere of fairness that allowed for proper and diligent work.
He described the working conditions of the internal auditor as “so appalling” that many of the auditors have resigned whilst others have travelled outside the country to seek greener pastures.
He hinted that there were many in there who were also looking out for opportunities elsewhere to go.
Mr Wiafe explained that 15 out of his batch of 20 internal auditors that were employed in 2007 had already resigned from the Public Services because of poor conditions of services and neglect by the authorities.
Mr Asare-Brewu, on his part also said the internal auditor could not report its concerns and issues to even the Internal Audit Agency (IAA) because “we are not under them. We are treated as civil servants working in the Public Services and most of us are not even given the independence to function objectively and independently.
He said the present situation prevents them from functioning independently, for fear of being victimised or intimidated.
“We want government to look at our conditions of services and structure. We have followed up on these issues for the past 10 years but no tangible responses have yet been received”, Mr Asare-Brewu added.
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