‘RAA’s Approach towards Risk-based Auditing’

The 13^th Annual Audit Conference on the theme ‘RAA’s Approach towards Risk Based Auditing’ will be convened from 21^st to 23^rd July 2010, at the YDF Hall, Thimphu. Hundred and seventy auditors including auditors from the Regional Offices will be attending the Conference. The opening ceremony will be graced by the Hon’ble Minister, Ministry of Works & Human Settlement. As usual, sixteen new members who have joined the RAA will take Oath of good conduct, ethics and secrecy from the Venerable Tshugla Lopen from Zhung Dratshang during the opening ceremony.

“Risk based auditing is an auditing technique that responds to the risk factors in an audit by assessing the levels of risk attached to different areas of an organisation’s system and using the results to devise audit tests. The purpose is to focus audit on the areas of highest risk in order to improve the chances of detecting the errors”.

While the Royal Audit Authority had embarked upon conducing risk-based audit as a new functional approach in the recent past, it has not been able to fully implement it. For this reason the theme for this year’s conference had been adopted as ‘RAA’s approach towards risk-based auditing’, wherein the initiatives already undertaken to address the risk-based auditing will be reviewed and new strategies will be adopted to further strengthen the risk-based audit. With this approach, it is expected that the audit resources in terms of time and costs will be utilised efficiently and effectively, and would add more value to the agencies being audited.

Amongst others, the three day conference will also witness the launching of the Financial Audit Manual and the Auditor General’s Standing Instructions during the opening ceremony. The agenda of the conference also includes presentation and deliberations on: Construction Audit Manual, Performance audit of Farm Roads, Field Audit Monitoring System, Planning & Monitoring System (PLAMS) and Accelerating Bhutan’s Socio-economic Development Project by GNHC among others.

10^th Indo-Bhutan Audit Training

June 10, 2010: The 10^th Indo-Bhutan Audit Training on ‘Audit of Public Debt’ will convene from 14-18 June 2010 at the Bhutan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI), Thimphu. A week long training will be attended by more than thirty participants including Auditors from the Regional Offices, Royal Audit Authority and nine Internal Auditors from various Ministries and agencies.

The training is in continuation with the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, and the Royal Audit Authority initially in 2001. This MoU got extended to another five years in 2006.

Ms. Hema Munivenkatappa, Sr. Deputy Accountant General, and Ms. S. Ahalladini Panda, Director from the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General are the resource persons.
 

Press Release

(Issued in concurrence to the release of the Annual Audit Report 2009)

May 26, 2010: As mandated under the Article 25.5 of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Bhutan and the Sections 69 to 73 of the Audit Act of Bhutan 2006, the Royal Audit Authority (RAA) is pleased to issue the Annual Audit Report (AAR) 2009. The AAR 2009 is a summary of significant unresolved findings detected during the year.  

The Annual Audit Report 2009 is compiled from 609 audit reports issued during the year. The total unresolved significant irregularities reported in the Annual Audit Report amounted to Nu. 348.34 million compared to Nu. 151.00 million reported in the Annual Audit Report 2008. The higher figure this year is mainly due to huge overdue advances in some of the agencies particularly under the Ministry of Education and Tourism Council of Bhutan. The advances in these two agencies pertained to major procurement and ongoing construction activities. The other reason is attributable to the substantial increase in the number of reports issued during the year. As compared to 450 reports issued in 2008, the RAA issued 609 reports in 2009.

As required under the Audit Act of Bhutan 2006, the Annual Audit Report in its draft form was circulated to all the agencies concerned in January 2010 and a sum amount of Nu. 252.943 million consisting about 42% were resolved during the process of finalisation of the report.

As we commit and gear towards yet another fruitful year, we would like to acknowledge the continued supports and cooperation rendered by all the agencies in our endeavours.

The Auditor General of Bhutan will be leading a two member delegation to Beijing, China to attend the 19th Working Group on IT Audit Meeting from 15th April to 17th April, 2010. The Working Group is an arm of International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI) dedicated to support developing knowledge and skills in the use and audit of Information Technology. The Group also serves as a forum to share experiences and best practices for IT related audits.

The meeting, besides getting updates on the working group website and its journal ‘intoIT’, will discuss on the progress of ongoing projects like measures taken to counter fraud in IT Environment, risks for E-governance projects and mitigation strategies to address them and IT tools for Electronic Audit Papers.  The Auditor General will be making a presentation on IT Auditing in Bhutan on the second day of the meeting.

The meeting will be attended by 37 member countries.
 

March 12, 2010: The Auditor General of Bhutan, Mr.Ugen Chewang will be leading a two member delegation to attend the International Conference on environmental audit in New Delhi, India on 15^th and 16^th March, 2010. The conference will be addressing issues concerning pollution of lakes, pollution of rivers and pollution of ground water. The Auditor General besides delivering a key note address will chair the session on “Pollution of rivers”. The Auditor General will also join Comptroller & Auditor General of India, Bangladesh, Maldives, Oman and Secretary General of INTOSAI as member for the panel discussion on “The way forward for Supreme Audit Institutions in auditing environmental issues”.

February 2, 2010: The Royal Audit Authority conducted a two-day Mid Term Review Meeting at the Office of the Assistant Auditor General, Tsirang on 28^th & 29^th January 2010. The meeting chaired by the Auditor General of Bhutan was attended by the Department heads, the Assistant Auditors General of the regional offices, Division Chiefs and the Team leaders.

The meeting reviewed the progress of the Annual Audit Plan 2009-10 for the last six months and also the status of various resolutions of the monthly Policy, Planning & Consultative Meeting (PPCM) and Annual Audit Conferences. The meeting also deliberated on various contemporary issues and challenges relating to the auditing profession. A series of presentations were made for disseminating information on institutionalization processes that have come up by way of various manuals and guidelines. The agenda also included the presentation by different groups on development of data bank on the audit objective, criteria and detailed audit procedures on all the budget heads of the Royal Government of Bhutan. The outcome of this brainstorming session was expected to enable the Royal Audit Authority to come up with comprehensive data bank on the audit procedures to be followed while auditing the budgetary agencies. Further, it is also expected to serve as basis for periodic evaluation and monitoring of the audit assignments.

The Mid-Term Review Meeting is an annual feature conducted to take the stock of achievement of the 1^st half year, identify and remedy the bottlenecks, if any and to reaffirm the commitments for the rest of the plan period.