 Hello and welcome to Issues and Answers. I'm your host for today Jacques Hingston Compton. I'm here today with Director of Audit Yvonne James and Audit Principal Joy Steven. Hello, welcome to the show. Thank you for having us. Now, for those of us who don't know, let's begin with this. What is the difference between the Director of Audit and the Audit Principal? Perhaps both of you. Well, each of you could talk about your roles. Well, as the Director of Audit, my primary function is to report to Parliament on the work of the Audit Office and of the activities of the Executive. So basically, my role is to report. However, the Audit Principal is the one who goes out with the team to actually conduct the audit of the various departments and ministries. So with regards to my function, I am basically responsible for planning the audit, going out and executing that audit, drafting my report and submitting it to my Director for review and issuance to the Parliamentarian Office. So on a whole, what is the Audit Department itself responsible for? So the Audit Department is basically responsible for auditing all of the government agencies, statutory bodies, government activities that have occurred during the year. So anything that Parliament has given funding to for the year, it is the responsibility of the Audit Office to then report to Parliament as to whether or not the funds that they have issued have been spent in accordance with due regard for efficiency and economy. So it would be the Office of Parliament itself that would request an audit of the various departments? Not necessarily. It is enshrined in the Constitution as to what it is that the Audit Office is responsible for. So the Constitution gives clear guidance that at the end of every year, the Audit Office is to report to Parliament on the work that has occurred. So any works that have been done through with regards to ministries, departments, any funding that they have received, whether or not that they have spent it in accordance with what they were responsible for? And I also know there are different kinds of audits. Could you speak a little bit about that? Okay. So we conduct financial audits, which is what the director spoke to directly short while ago, whereby upon the issuance of the financial statements of the state for the year, we would be responsible for auditing those financials to issue a report on the truth and fairness, and whether or not those financials are in accordance with applicable laws under counting frameworks upon which those financials have been prepared. We also conduct compliance audits, which is to ensure that ministries, agencies, governments, those individuals charged with the responsibilities for the use of the funds that have been budgeted in the estimates, that those funds have been used and they are in compliance with the financial regulations and administrative regulations that are put forth through our Constitution and other laws and regulations. In addition to that, when we carry out our donor-funded audits, we need to ensure that they are compliant with the financial agreements that we engage in with those donor agencies, for instance, the World Bank. We conduct performance audits as well, which is where we go out to verify whether or not those funds have been used with economy efficiency and effectiveness in accordance with the objectives of the projects or programs that have been undertaken. And how often do you perform those sorts of audits? Well, we perform audits throughout the year. So, at the beginning of every year, we have what we call an annual work plan. We do a risk assessment of our audit universe, which is the government agencies and departments, and at that point we decide what are the high-risk or the key areas that we need to focus on for any particular year. So, throughout the year we will be doing these audits. However, annually it is the responsibility of the Accounting Generals Department to prepare the financial statements which we also audit and prepare our report six months after the end of the financial year. You mentioned high risks. Could you give me an example of that? For instance, for this year we have assessed that revenue is something we consider high-risk. Whether or not there are sufficient controls embedded in the system to detect fraud, to prevent fraud, to ensure that there are controls that mitigate any risk areas. So, for this year we assessed all of the different activities which government undertake, and the different areas, the places where you would have high expenditure, high revenue, and we assessed that revenue would have been a high-risk area. So, for this year we are focusing on revenue agencies. And could you give me a sort of an example of the Office of Parliament coming to you? What would they specifically ask for? Why would they request an audit? Well, an audit can be requested if Parliament has assessed that there is something going on within the country that they need the attention of the audit office, or they need us to focus on. It could range from a particular ministry or department that they feel that they need an assessment of, it could range to a topic or program. So, it is up to Parliament to then decide what it is that is of high priority to them, and they can request that of the audit office. So, they might ask you about the efficiency or effectiveness of a particular program? They can, yes. Okay, and earlier you mentioned donor funded projects. What are donor funded projects? Okay, so as we know in preparation of our budgets, we need to have matching revenue to support the expenditure for the year. Government in addition would have projects that they may wish to undertake for a given year, and they may not necessarily have the revenues to facilitate that. And so they engage donors such as the World Bank, CDB, etc., to seek funding to facilitate those projects that they may wish to undertake. At times, they too are approached by those donor agencies to try to implement projects that may be of concern to us. So, say, sustainable development. And those donor funds, they give us those funds for specific projects to engage in specific projects. And so it is essential that at the end of the day that we do use the funds for the purpose it was intended. So, if the World Bank, say, gives us funding to build a bridge, the expectation is that the funds would be used to build that bridge. And we're expected at the end of each financial year to provide the World Bank with an audit report as to how the funding has been used and are they being compliant. Most times those projects will run for more than a year and so annually until the project closes, we're responsible for auditing those projects and finishing the World Bank with reports. And are these are the findings of any of these audits? Are they ever made available to the public or accessible to the public? As long as an audit report is tabled in the house, then it is a public document and available for the public to see. So, once we, at the end of the day, our, for instance, our donor funded projects would not be tabled separately, but it would form part of the audit's annual report. And so the information within there would be found either on our website or can be requested of our office, like I said, once it is tabled. In addition to that, we also have special reports that we would then issue to Parliament that we would be tabled. So, for instance, my co-worker talked about the donor funded project. Sometimes we would do a performance audit, say, for instance, on the Baudouge Bridge and that is in our public document. It can be found on our website and it can be requested of the office. So, are those the only two places that the information can be found? Through your website and... And through your office or can be requested of the Cook of Parliament? Okay. We're due for a break right now. Stay tuned to this station. We'll be right back in a moment. Everyone says counselling, counselling, counselling. How do I get a chance? In my case, PS won't buy me counselling. Mollie Glassia, just yesterday you were asking me advice about your husband. And we spent over an hour on the cell. That's counselling. I don't know what to do. Mollie Glassia, just think about it. When you have a difficulty with someone, you ask your friends for advice to help you to deal with your problems. But wouldn't you prefer getting advice from a professional counsellor? I hope we're not one of those who think counselling is for crazy people. Hmm... When you're in a situation where... I need professional counselling, but I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. Don't you know the Ministry of the Public Service has an employee assistance programme, they call it EAP, which is offering six free counselling sessions for government employees? Eglasia, why don't you take advantage of it? Really? It's free. Let me call the EAP unit ASAP. Because I want professional, did you say free? Free counselling. But Eglasia, who? Who is the counsellor? Call the EAP unit at 468-2269. EAP Works, let it work for you. Welcome back to Issues and Answers. I am here with Yvonne James, the Director of Audit, and Joyce Steven, the Audit Principal. Now, before we left, we were talking about the findings being made available to the public. Could you... But now I want you to explain the reporting process. Okay, so at the end of every financial year, it is the responsibility of the Audit Office to report to Parliament on the work that has been undertaken. And to do this, we would send this report through the Minister of Finance that it be laid in the House. The Minister would then forward that report to the Clerk of Parliament who would put it on the Parliament's agenda at the next sitting of Parliament. There are provisions made within the legislation that if the Minister of Finance does not lay the report before the House within a timely manner that the Director of Audit can forward that information directly to the Clerk of Parliament and it should be laid in the House at the next available sitting. Okay, and what happens when the report is delivered to the Minister? What does the Finance Minister do with it? Well, when a report is delivered to the Minister, it is his responsibility not only to just lay it in the House but to disseminate it to the appropriate personnel and to discuss the findings of the report. There is an arm of Parliament called the PAC, the Public Accounts Committee, who is supposed to sit in on those reports to review it and to call to account any public officer or any accountable officer who the report has highlighted has maybe delegated on the authority or there were issues that the Director of Audit highlighted with regards to that particular Ministry of Department. And are you, is the Audit Department sort of independent entirely from the Office of Parliament? The Audit Office is entirely independent of Parliament and it is set up in the Constitution in that way that the state auditors perform their role independently without regard for political interference, ministerial interference so that whatever report is published is fair and is unbiased. Just to provide some more insight on that, we know in the private sector organizations usually engage external audit firms. In essence, the Office of the Director of Audit are the external auditors to the Government of St. Lucia. And so this is why we don't report under a specific Ministry. We are independent from every Ministry. So we are the external auditors to the state like KPMG to the private sector or PWC to the private sector. So we are totally independent from the Government of the agencies. Other than what you just mentioned, what other sort of differences would you have from say a private auditor, or auditors in the private sector? Well, that's an interesting question because an audit office is considered a supreme audit institution. We are guided by an international agency which is called Intosai, which is the international organization of supreme audit institution. And our regulations that we follow or our audit standards that we follow are enshrined in something called an ISA, which is Intosai Standards for Supreme Audit Institutions. While we would function when we would do a financial audit, it would not be purely a financial audit. We would have to look at whether or not that Ministry or that department functioned with regards to the rules, the regulations, the laws, cabinet memos, whatever it is that's supposed to guide that agency with regards to their work. So a private auditor when doing a financial audit would focus on just the financials. Our audit office never focuses on just the financials or just the figures because what we have to do is to let the solution public know that the funds, that their funds, because it is taxpayer money, that the funds that have been collected are being used for the state in the manner in which it was intended. So what sort of roles would be in the audit department? Can you sort of break down the different types of people that would be in the audit department, I suppose, aside from accountants? Well, our office is one that has not just auditors in the true sense. We have economists by profession. We have some persons who started off as mathematicians and statisticians because the role of a supreme audit institution or a state auditor is not just about the figures. It is about how that money was spent, whether it was spent with regard for due efficiency, economy, and effectiveness. Just to add some context here, you asked about the skill set within our department and when considering the skills that we currently have, one could say that we have auditors with experience combined of over 100 years because there are individuals who have audited for so long. But moreover is the fact that, as my director said, we have a diverse set of skills where individuals even had to get themselves up to speed with project management simply because we have a responsibility to go out there and audit those projects and so we need to understand what we're auditing in an effort first to be able to do that. So I think she said it well when she said our office is not just a financially accounting based office, but rather an office that has a diverse set of skills with individuals who are adequately skilled to conduct the audits that we conduct. Now going through your reading material, I came across something interesting, special reports and normal reports. Could you go through that a little bit? So what happens is that the constitution lays plainly what it is that the director has to audit and a lot of times, people, persons will say that your audit seems so negative, but the constitution guides that you report on all of those findings, whether or not persons maintain their records in a specific manner, which is what the regulations have stated, whether or not they spend the monies as they should and in conducting our normal audits, at times there are things that we may identify that requires a special report and we use the term special report to say that it is so important that we cannot have it buried in our annual report. So for instance, we may have looked at say a poverty reduction program that the government was doing and perhaps something in that triggered an audit, a necessity of an audit to be done. When that would have been done, we would not report it together with the annual report because the findings would have been so specific and so important that we felt that it requires a special report. Okay, we're almost approaching the end of the program. Are there any final thoughts from both of you? I think what is most important is that we want the solution public to know that there is an audit office and there is an agency that exists specifically to hold ministries and departments to account for the funding that they receive. That persons are not just given an appropriation budget and they're left to spend. There are checks and balances within the system that is aimed at protecting the common citizen and we are there and we are functioning. Okay, for me I would just like to emphasize the fact for our internal stakeholders and I use this term carefully whereby ministries, agencies, etc. understand the fact that we as an audit office we're not here to highlight flaws that individuals may commit just because we want to say that Ms. James has committed fraud or Mr. Compton has created some sort of fraud to improve the efficiency of the operations of the government of St. Lucia and that is our main objective to highlight weaknesses, make recommendations so as to achieve the overall objective that is to have a public service that is operating based on accountability, transparency and efficiency and effectiveness. I think overall that is what we really seek to do when we go out there to just to improve things moving forward. So they need to understand that we are here simply to improve the whole operations of the government of St. Lucia by way of making recommendations and keeping people accountable. That's excellent. Alright, I want to thank you both for joining me today on issues and answers. I am Jacques Hingson Compton. Thank you for watching this episode. Let's tune into this station for other programming.