Sana'a - The Central Organization for Control and Auditing (COCA), in cooperation with the Secretary General of Asian Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (ASOSAI)) organized, on Tuesday, the 5th meeting of the 7th ASOSAL research project on Audit Quality Management System (AQMS).
Delegates from Asia, principally from Bangladesh, China, India, Malaysia, Pakistan, and the Philippines s well as Yemen, participated in the three-day meeting.
The meeting resulted in AQMS guidelineswhich will be approved by the ASOSAI Governing Board in its upcoming meeting in China.
At the opening session, attended by Sana'a embassy representatives as well as top-level management from COCA, a welcome speech was given by Abdullah Al-Sanafi, President of COCA, in which he congratulated the senior officers on being selected to carry out the assignment.
He reserved particular praise for COCA and ASOSAI relations, particularly in training and scientific research. "It is important to finalize guidelines for audit quality to improve the audit environment in the ASOSAI," he said, adding that the meeting would discuss the guidelines to be approved by the ASOSAI Governing Board in its China meeting next October or September.
Rupedra Ghosh, the Indian SAI representative, gave a speech on behalf of the secretary general of ASOSAI in which he thanked COCA for its continued cooperation with ASOSAI.
He said that the meeting was an opportunity to unify visions for the research project and improve the work of audit units in participating countries.
The ASOSAI, one of seven Regional Working Groups of the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI), was established in 1979.
The 7th ASOSAI Research Project on 'Audit Quality Management System' was approved in the 33rd Governing Board Meeting of the Asian Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (ASOSAI) held in Manila in October 2003.
The objective of the project was to provide specific guidance to member Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) in establishing an audit quality management system. Seven members opted to be the members of the research project, namely Bangladesh, China, India, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines and Yemen, with India chosen as the team leader.
The Governing Board members approved the model for the 7th Research Project, to be completed in 4 phases indicating the suggested time frame for the implementation of the project. The phase I of the project was about compiling prevalent audit quality management practices, both in private and public sector auditing. In phase II, 'Audit quality management guidelines' was to be prepared based on the findings from phase I. It was decided that both the phases should be completed by 30th November, for the presentation of the Interim Report to Governing Board at its 34th meeting in December 2004.
During the phase III, audit quality management guidelines prepared under phase II would be piloted in a few SAIs, including those which are members of the research project.
Finally, in phase IV, the lessons from phase III would be reviewed and a final document would be prepared and presented to the 36th Governing Board & the 10th Assembly in October 2006.
In the start-up workshop in March-April 2004 held in India, a blueprint for the audit quality management framework and a possible road map for future were drawn up. Subject matter experts from GAO USA, NAO UK and OAG Canada assisted the research efforts by sharing their basic framework for audit quality management. This was used as a reference in the formulation of the research framework.
In the 2nd meeting in July 2004 in Kuala Lumpur, all the major quality dimensions and instruments were deliberated and it was decided that the final draft guidelines would cover all the major components of audit quality. In mid-October 2004, the first draft was circulated to the research team members and based on the deliberations in the final meeting in Beijing in the last week of October 2004, the final draft guidelines on audit quality management were circulated to the members of the Governing Board of ASOSAI.
The team members of the research project were:
Bangladesh Niaz Rahman
Shofiqul Islam
China Yang Li
India R N Ghosh
Roy Mathrani
Malaysia Anwari bin Suri
Abid bin Abdul Jalil
Pakistan Muhammad Azam Khan
Wasim Ahmed
Philippines Elizabeth S Zosa
Rolando S Macale
Yemen Mr. Mohamed Ahmed Assyani
Abdul Hakeem Al-Sabahi
By Adnan Hizam
© Yemen Observer 2005
