By: Kebba AF Touray
The National Audit Office (NAO) in a press release has challenged all public institutions and organisations to make a timely submission of their complete and accurate financial statements for audit.
He decried late and incomplete submission of financial statements, which he said continues to be one of the key challenges for his office, which results in the extension of the audit completion and reporting timeline.
“The Auditor General wishes to remind public institutions about the submission of timely, complete, and accurate financial statements for audit. As per the statutory requirements, financial statements should be submitted three months after a financial year ends by 31st March of the new financial year,” NAO said in the press release.
The Audit Officer reminds and urges the custodians of public resources of their duty to ensure compliance with applicable reporting standards and regulations in preparing financial statements, as another financial year closes, as well as all the general management and administration of public resources.
In addition, NAO urges that the management of those institutions still in back-log in the submission of their audit reports, to make more effort in preparing their financial statements to be audited. The office further indicated that all efforts are being made at the level of NAO, to clear the audit backlogs, including the Consolidated Government Financial Statement audit reports, for the realization of a greater audit impact.
“NAO will continue to build on stakeholder engagements to increase dialogue with all respective stakeholders on the audit issues/challenges and ways to address the gaps. This we believe will help improve the audit service delivery and the implementation of audit recommendations,” NAO said in the press release.
The release continued that as another new year begins, NAO looks forward to another year of enhanced collaboration and partnership with all ‘our’ diverse stakeholders.
