“It’s not true that people don’t know how to keep books. People do. Recording expenditures and revenue is not rocket science. The question is: do people want to do that? How much commitment to public interest is there?”
| The Audit Chamber has finally completed its first audit, for the years 2005 and 2006. Sudan ex-Ambassador to Japan and now Auditor General STEVEN WONDU has a conversation with BADRU MULUMBA as he makes a year since he took over in 2007:– |
I had been out of audit work for many years; That’s a fact. We were in this struggle we were in diplomacy, America ten years, Japan four years, whatever I was reading was not auditing at the time. I was practicing politics, I was practicing sociology, I was practicing diplomacy. I needed time to come and deal with technical matters
Q. Independence is around the corner; what is there for the audit chamber to show?
I think let’s go back to history. South Sudan, as an administrative entity, has never had an audit entity. Even during the Addis Ababa agreement era, the audit entity was centralized in Khartoum. And they seldom came to the south; if they did, it was for a day or two to pick up documents and go. The concept of an audit authority is a new thing that came into being with the promulgation of the 2005 constitution. Unfortunately, for us, the actual creation and implementation of that provision of the constitution run into difficulty. Instead of creating a traditional supreme body headed by one professional government again, stemming from lack of experience, created a committee of five. Audit chambers are not run by committees. That committee could not exercise the mandate provided for in the constitution. Consequently, Parliament decided to remove the committee. And the president appointed a caretaker administrator who, knowing his strengths and limitations, did not allow audit work to proceed because he could not supervise audit work. And I think that was a fair decision. In 2009, or there abouts, a deputy auditor general was appointed with the mandate of acting auditor general, but the funds allocated to audit chamber were curtailed after the removal of the auditor general and his team. Thus the caretaker could not carry out audits.
But a consulting firm employed from UK, PKF, demanded to audit the MDTF and assist the audit chamber. They looked into accounts of 06 and 05, but access to information was limited because, they were expatriates and people are not familiar with the responsibilities. A new auditor general was nominated in February 2010, but confirmation from Parliament never took place. Even then the nominee was working in central government: the process of removing an ambassador took its course. So, I started in July 2010.
All the financial years from 2005 to 10 had no audit reports issued. The new auditor general had two constraints. I had been out of audit work for many years; That’s a fact. We were in this struggle we were in diplomacy, America ten years, Japan four years, whatever I was reading was not auditing at the time. I was practicing politics, I was practicing sociology, I was practicing diplomacy. I needed time to come and deal with technical matters. Second, the drafts reports done were done in my absence and I was not going to issue a report to President and Parliament on matters on which I was not familiar. I needed to go though the working papers on the basis of assertions that would constitute the audit report. We have finalized audit reports for 2005 and 2006. These will become public information in due course. Unfortunately, they coincide with independence preparations that take the President, the Speaker away from their desks. So we have not been able to clear it for presentation to the public. This will happen in due course. Apart from that we have carried out institution building. The constitution says the our activities and conditions and powers are given by law. By that time, this law had not been promulgated. It became top priority for me. It was passed as a provisional order in January 2011. It’s now in Parliament for conversion into an act. We created an audit manual, and a code of ethics. The manual was a basis for training. So we have had two batches of training. New recruits. Thirty of them. But there is no critical mass from which to recruit. Southerners in national audit chamber are only 17. We are in process of recruiting those who are interested in joining us. We have managed to recruit new people thirty with diplomas and degrees. But new recruits lack command of English, English being a language of instruction, the official language in government, the official language for writing accounting books. I have put them back in school; I opened a training school for these to improve their language so that they can deliver before we even think of professional training. The students are very happy. I have also included other staff who may not be technical staff into the training.
We have also had physical institutional building. We are operating in a very small building, which restricts the capacity of the chamber. Parliament approved some funds for me. MDTF approved some. We have finished tendering. We are selecting construction firms. If things end happily we should have an audit chamber before 2012, given the construction constraints in this country. If I had my way, I would want it to be in twelve months. But I don’t always have my way.
Operational audits are proceeding in the states. Staff are reviewing 2008 and 2007. We have already finished basic audits. It’s two desks away from me now. I would like to present this by September. I would like to bring audit backlog update by 2012, ceteris peribus, other things being equal.
Q. Clearly, you are in your early days. But do you have a clear policy document upon which to operate?
We have the constitution section 195. There is the provisional order of 2011.
Q. That gives you the mandate. But do government institutions understand their roles vis-a-vis the AG?
The audit chamber understands its mandate.
Q. But what about the other partners, such as the institutions that you ought to audit?
I have not had an adversarial relationship. We explain to them that we are there for their good. It’s a service. It’s a staffing institution, evaluating institution about government performance in the financial and management fields. It can be misconstrued sometimes but it’s my duty to cool them down, to convince them that it’s for the common good of society.
Q. Critics often point to the lack of audit accounts to say that south Sudan is not ready to self-govern.
I think I will prove the prophets of doom wrong. We staggered at the beginning, but every child does that. You start, then you fall, and get up. We are determined to bring this up. The beauty of that is that this is a technical department and human resource can be found in the wider world. Even if we don’t have them here we can borrow. There is an international organization of supreme audit institutions, which we attended last year and we are going there in Gabon next month as observers. They help each other.
Q. When will you beome a member.
I applied this year, but the decision is not mine.
Q. Whose decision was it to apply?
I wrote to the Chairman. They are expecting us. They invited us to the meeting as observers. And that’s when we’are going to formalize the application. But again membership of a global organization is not a matter I can do alone. I need to work with ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Presidency.
Q. You believe that the AG Chambers will positively impact your work. Just to be clear, how will having real physical chambers improve your operations?
We are aiming for staff of 321 by next year. We can also use the space for audit firms that we hire to come and help us with our work. We are looking to the far future. That’s why we are building once and for all. That’s the motto of my first university, Makerere; we build for the future.
Q. So, you have been looking at all these books, over the years. According to your reports, did GOSS spend money wisely?
No comment. I have not briefed the president. It’s a matter of discipline.
Q. Some may say that one can infer government interest in accountability in the size of the budget allocated to the accountability institutions, such as the Audit Chamber. Who is your major funder? MDTF or Government?
It’s 50:50. We are talking about six million from either side.
Q. You earlier said that the Arabs used to just parachute…
I didn’t say the Arabs. I said the national audit chamber. Don’t put words in my mouth. (Laughter)
Q. Fair point. Anyway, how did the parachuting destroy the accountability culture?
There were two competing issues here. One, before the Addis Ababa agreement during the war there was no government worth auditing in the south. During Addis Ababa Agreement the southern government resisted interference from the central government. These auditors would come and just pick the financial statements and go. I have never, in my life, seen their reports.
Q. What plans have you now that this will soon be a national audit chamber?
Strengthening and broadening financial oversight responsibility – and deepening it to assist all levels of government under the constitution up to the county level.
I would also need to broaden our audit operations to assist institutions that have been under central government like university, River Transport, Water Corporation, Electricity Corporation, socially sensitive institutions. We need to assist them. To assist them we must know better than them. At the moment I am relieved of Juba University because they were audited by the national audit chamber last year. But next year they revert to this audit chamber. We need human resource training. We are creating south Sudan specific programmes for government auditing. Most degrees from universities deal with corporate accounting, profits. Now the international community has created institutions that deal specifically with government audits. I want to get close to those and use the same standards to train our auditors here. We will realize a formal three-year plan in due course.
Q. Manpower in the states is so weak that they can’t even keep day to day accounting receipts. It must be hard to cope?
It varies from state to state. In some places we get pleasant surprises. In others unpleasant surprises. It’s not true that people don’t know how to keep books. People do. Recording expenditures and revenue is not rocket science. The question is do people want to do that? How much commitment to public interest is there? Thus the need for external auditors to create a moral restraint
Q. Perhaps you need a massive awareness drive as is the case with HIV?
I plan some workshops for the accounting officers targeted to persons concerned – we are talking about directors. In addition, there must be law enforcement. We are not prosecutorial.
So, where an error is committed there has got to be a remedy.
The challenge is how do we avoid impunity. There are several remedies. Restitution, you pay back to right the wrong. But also a state has to agree to punish. It must be strong enough to punish. When you have instances where state is too weak to punish, it undermines the mandate of the professional authority.
Challenges could go beyond my office. You need to strengthen Parliament with technical personnel who understand audit reports, and review them because they are the highest authority in the land. Committees like public accountants, finance, economic committee must be backed by technical people who assist them in evaluating technical material. That’s how we help government. We tell them, look: Your committees are weak. The Presidency too requires experts. They have began employing national experts now to strengthen the presidency. You don’t expect the head of state to read my 300-pages. The technical men and women would be required to advise the President accordingly. At the moment some expect the president to read this report. It’s not realistic — The president has a minister from Germany, he has a telephone call from the President of Rwanda, he’s got cattle raiding going on Jonglei. The capacity building, therefore, goes beyond the audit chamber. It goes to the presidency –,legislature, the judiciary, ministry of Legal Affairs – all these institutions.
Q. Time is out. Independence is here. As a leader what is your last word to the people of southern Sudan?
The people of south Sudan must take a deep breath now. On the 9th we must all take a deep breath and take a decision as to whether we have reached the goal, or whether we are actually beginning.
My answer is that it’s the beginning of a new struggle. What we did before was the easy part of destruction , destroying life and property. One grenade was enough to do that. The challenge from July 9 will be construction and building and improving quality of life. That will be more challenging, that is more serious, that will be more difficult to do. And we have to stand up strong with four legs to be able to do that.
Take the example of the bridge. You just put dynamite down and the bridge is gone. That’s easy. Building the bridge is harder. The same thing with human relations. We have got communities – it’s easy to throw a spear and to kill the other one, but to turn
