IAA Concludes Strategic Planning Retreat
The Internal Audit Agency of Liberia has concluded a three-day Strategic Planning Retreat in Ganta City, Nimba County, with a recommitment to ensuring compliance with relevant laws in the utilization of public resources.
The Retreat is part of the IAA’s ongoing reform efforts aimed at further strengthening institutional governance and increasing productivity at the workplace.
A cross section of staff from various units within the entity participated in the three-day intensive working sessions that deliberated key instruments of relevance, including the entity’s Regulation and Strategic Plan, among others.
The IAA’s Regulation reflects an explanation of the 2013 Act establishing the Internal Audit Agency, while the Strategic Plan encapsulates a five-year roadmap that specifically supports the Accountability pillar of the Government’s Pro-Poor Agenda for Prosperity and Development (PAPD).
Speaking at the Retreat, the Acting Director General of the IAA, Hon. Clarence W. Williams, challenged employees to recommit to the statutory mandate of the IAA by promulgating and ensuring that common internal audit standards and systems, in keeping with best practices, are established and maintained across the Government of Liberia.
Hon. Williams indicated that, as part of its five-year Strategic Plan, the IAA, under its deployment strategy, is determined to cover 85% of the total number of entities within the public sector. Currently, the IAA covers 63% of the total number of public sector entities in Liberia.
Commenting on ongoing reform efforts at the IAA, the Acting Director General pronounced his full support to the establishment of the Standardization, Production and Archiving Section as proposed by the Department of Audit Services.
The Standardization, Production and Archiving Section will ensure that all audit reports are uniquely formatted, properly produced and carefully archived with the ultimate goal of attaining uniformity and ease of reference.
Meanwhile, the IAA boss has reaffirmed the entity’s commitment to the impending nationwide payroll verification exercise of the National Payroll Cleanup Taskforce constituted by His Excellency President George Manneh Weah.
As Co-chair on the Taskforce, Hon. Williams reiterated IAA’s professional readiness to lead the process of conducting physical audits of government payrolls, consistent with its statutory mandate.
The nationwide payroll cleanup exercise, which is expected to roll out shortly this month, seeks to conduct physical head counts of Government employees in all fifteen counties of Liberia with the aim of removing ghost employees from the wage bill.
In the last 12 months, the IAA has audited the payrolls of over six Government institutions and successfully identified and removed about 800 ghost names from the payroll, thereby saving the Government an annual dollar value of L$175.1Million.
####