A performance audit team from the Auditor General of Namibia has been selected to receive a newly founded prize for best performance audit report produced by the AFROSAI-Es members. The reports title is “Service delivery to orphans and vulnerable children in the country”. The news was made public 12 April by the Swedish Auditor General Jan Landahl at the AFROSAI-E Governing Board Meeting held in the Lesotho capital Maseru.

Background

The prize is financed by the Swedish National Audit Office. The purpose of the prize is to promote the development of performance audit among African Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) and to highlight the efforts of the individual performance auditors. The prize can hopefully facilitate sharing of experience and benchmarking of best practice in performance audit within the region. The prize is awarded to one team in the region on a yearly basis.
The Swedish National Audit Office organised a review team consisting of four members from the Supreme Audit Institutions of the Netherlands, Norway, the United Kingdom and Sweden. These SAIs are all involved in partnerships with individual members of AFROSAI-E. This published Review Team Report is focused on the assessment and the qualities of the winning performance audit. The teams also comments on all the nominated reports that passed the formal assessment. Those comments are sent separately to each respective SAI and audit team.

The prize consists of a one week study visit to the Swedish National Audit Office for the three team members that produced the winning performance audit report. The team will be able to see how the performance audit work is organized in Sweden, meet colleagues and visit the Swedish parliament.  It is also expected that the team will be able to present their work in a workshop at the Swedish NAO.

Motivation

In its report of the winning team the review team concludes:

“The report on “Service delivery to orphans and vulnerable children in the country” is well structured. The report is a pleasure to read. You easily gain a comprehensive view of the content. The report is focused on a specific limited issue. It has a good summary and clear explanation of the basic problem.”

» Read more, the review team report

Three reports were formally accepted to compete for the prize 2009 after an assessment of the candidates in accordance with the award’s stipulated requirements. Although it was a difficult job to select a winner, the jury came to a unanimous conclusion.
Goran Hyltander, chairman of the Reviewing team says The performance audit report meets the quality criteria’s. The report is easy to read. The motivation for the audit topic makes it easy to understand the importance of the choice. The report deals with the audit objective; it is clearly structured and presented. The report deals with an important topic and points out the importance of giving the auditee the tools to implement its given tasks. The report has the possibility to create change and add value it can lead to a higher degree of transparency in the government.

» Read more interview Goran Hyltander

The Auditor General of Namibia, Mr Kandjeke says that the reason for Namibia to win the Prize were that “We were interested by the idea to win the price from the beginning. The challenge was to reduce the production time to be able to participate.

The team was engaged and the topic for the audit was an important one. We also had a peer review 2007 who pointed out areas of improvement that we have been able to carry out.”

» Read more, Interview Mr Kandjeke

Ms Grace Nelwamondo, the team leader, said that the clue to the success was good planning, but also that we were able to make room for new things that came up during the project. We were able to embrace changes. We were able to step out of the conference room. We asked and asked and asked questions.

» Read more, Interview with Chief Auditor Ms Grace Nelwamondo, team leader for the winning team from Namibia