OIA Follow-up On
Audit Recommendations

September 2016

Contents
ØIntroduction
ØFollow-up Processes
ØResults of the Follow-up

Introduction
• The Office of Internal Audit (OIA) was
established by the AU Executive Council
Decision in July 2003 in Maputo, Mozambique
• OIA is a directorate reporting to the Chairperson
of the Commission administratively
• OIA reports to the PRC Sub-Committee on Audit
Matters functionally as per Article 10(ii) of the
African Union Internal Audit Regulations (AUIAR)

Introduction (contd.)
• OIA is a secretariat to the Internal Audit
Progress Committee (IAPC), established under
Article 10(i) of AU-IAR.
• Article 3 of the AU-IAR (Internal Audit Charter)
mandates the OIA to conduct audit activities &
investigations of the AU Commission and other
AU Organs.

Follow-Up Processes
A. Individual Auditor follow-up
B. Follow-up during Audit Assignments
C. Follow-up
at
Financial
Management
Workshops
D. Follow-up using the Internal Audit Progress
Committee (IAPC)
E. Follow-up using the MK Insight (Audit
Management Software)
F. Follow-up using the Executive Council

A. Individual Auditor Follow-up
• This is done by emails, memos, phones, meetings
with audits, etc.
• This is difficult to check or quantify its
effectiveness
• Planning to put it as part of KPs for staff once we
put an effective monitoring system.

B. Follow-up during audit
assignments
• This is done either as a standalone assignment or
as part of the overall audit assignment
• All reports have 2 sections of follow up
Ø On internal audit recommendations
Ø On external audit recommendations

B. Follow-up during audit assign
(contd.)
• The implementation is shown for example as below
Recommendation

High

Medium

Implemented

-

-

Partially Implemented
Not Implemented
No longer relevant
Total

-

-

Low

Total

%

-

-

%

-

-

%
%
%
100%

• If the implementation is low, the issue is put as
critical/high priority in the report
• Our system also automatically puts on the executive
summary of the report all un- implemented
recommendations rated high in the previous audits.

C. Follow-up at Financial
Management Workshops
• The OIA has enforced the follow up on audit
recommendations to be a standing agenda item
on the annual financial management workshops.
• Status
Matrix
are
made
for
each
office/department/Organ and discussed openly
with everybody.
• This gives individual responsible officers
determination to implement outstanding audit
recommendations.

D. Follow up using the Internal Audit
Progress Committee (IAPC)
• The IAPC usually writes to various Auditees on
the implementation of OIA recommendations
especially on critical/high recommendations.
• The OIA prepares at least once in a year a
comprehensive matrix on the status of all
outstanding recommendations for IAPC.
• IAPC also writes to Auditees as a follow-up after
discussing the matrix.

E. Follow up using the MK Insight
Audit Management System.
• The upgraded MK Insight version 10.0 has a
function that provides an auto reminder on the
implementation of audit recommendations.
• This will be linked to various managers’ outlook
mails and it will send an auto reminder as set up
in the system.

F. Follow-up using the
Executive Council
• Member States made a decision that on each summit, OIA
should report on implementation of recommendations.
• This is mainly on both internal and external audit reports
presented to Policy Organs.
• The Board of External Auditors audit Financial
Statements and any other requests given by Member
States.
• Apart from normal internal audits, OIA is also mandated
to carryout quarterly budget performance audits and
directly present to Member States.
• The status of audit recommendations has become a
determining factor on approval of budgets for all AU
Organs by Member States.

Results of the Follow-up
Conclusion
Ø The OIA has noted that due to such follow up processes,
implementation of audit recommendations has improved.
Ø This has been noted on all recommendations both from
internal and external audits.
Ø This has also been commended by some external
assessors both at the departmental level and institutional
level.

THANKS