Audit Office woefully underqualified - Goolsarran

Audit Office woefully underqualified – Goolsarran

Oct 11, 2013 News

“Issues of national importance given superficial treatment, avoided”

There is only one qualified accountant in the Audit Office of Guyana, and incidentally, this person is the wife of the Minister of Finance, Dr Ashni Singh.
This was told to the visiting team from the Organisation of American States that was conducting an assessment of Guyana’s anti-corruption measures, by Former Auditor General Anand Goolsarran.

TIGI President, Anand Goolsarran

In his presentation on Tuesday last in his capacity as President of Transparency Institute (Guyana) Inc., Goolsarran lambasted the fact that the current Auditor General, Deodat Sharma, is not a qualified accountant.
He said that Dr Singh’s wife is also the de facto head of that Audit Office and is directly responsible for the audits of entities such as the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL) of which Dr Singh is the chairman.
He told the body that the serving Auditor General, Sharma “is not a professionally qualified accountant although he is required to supervise the work of Chartered Accountants in public practice contracted by him.”
Given the range of entities to be examined by the Auditor General’s Office, Goolsarran said that the mandate is very wide and that “the task is highly complex technically, professionally and otherwise, requiring the services of a highly trained, skilled, competent and respected person with a proven track record to serve as Auditor General.”
Goolsarran pointed out that “unlike several other countries, there are many State-owned/controlled companies, statutory bodies and public corporations for which the Auditor General has audit responsibility.”
In pointing out another quagmire that emanates as a result of Sharma’s inadequate qualification, Goolsarran noted that the Companies Act requires the auditors of companies to be issued with practising certificates from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Guyana before undertaking the audits of companies.
“Since he is not a professionally qualified accountant, the Auditor General is not in possession of such a certificate…Regrettably, neither the Constitution nor the Audit Act 2004 specifies qualification requirements for appointment as Auditor General.”
Goolsarran further stated that the effect of not having a suitably qualified person to serve as Auditor General, is the inability to attract and retain suitably qualified and trained persons to serve under him or her.
“This would therefore have an adverse effect on the quality of the work undertaken and the reports issued.”
He said too that at present and to a large extent, this is true of the Guyana Audit Office, as many of the findings are routine, resembling those of an internal audit.
“Several significant issues of national importance are given superficial treatment or are avoided in their entirety.”
As such the TIGI President recommends that the Audit Act be amended to include qualification requirements for appointment as Auditor General.

Auditor General, Deodat Sharma

The person to be appointed, according to Goolsarran, should possess at least a professional accounting qualification such as the ACCA (UK), CPA (USA), CGA (Canada).
“He or she must also have appropriate experience in an external audit environment at a very senior level, preferably at the level of a partner of a reputable chartered accounting firm…Alternatively, in addition to having an advanced degree in one of the related disciplines – accounting, finance, economic and public management – the person should be an expert in public finance and administration.”
He said in both situations, it would be imperative for the Audit Office to be staffed with professionally qualified accountants at the senior management level.

2 thoughts on “Audit Office woefully underqualified – Goolsarran”

Kaieteur_Canada October 11, 2013 at 9:56 am

So what you are saying is that we have yet another case of a PPP/Creature square peg in a round hole heretofor lacking some education to round out the corners?

But so is all in this Peoples Progressive Pestilence government.
Linden Sinclair October 11, 2013 at 4:07 pm

The only qualification needed is a party card… Sense not required