Statement by Attorney General of the National Audit Office (NAO) Mr Karamba Touray
Worksop For Media Houses on the Work of the National Audit Office
Good morning distinguished ladies and gentlemen from the various media houses, Deputy Auditors General and staff of the National Audit Office, all other protocols respectfully and duly observed. Let me welcome you all to this orientation workshop for media houses.
In democracies, Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) have a critical role in holding government to account and enabling legislative oversight. Supreme Audit Institutions are a critical part of the accountability architecture. Given their mandate to “watch” over government accounts, operations and performance, they should be natural partners of citizens in exercising public scrutiny. The scope of Supreme Audit Institutions’ work is to increase transparency for the benefit of citizens through external auditing.
We have identified stakeholder engagements as a strategic priority in our Strategic Development Plan 2020 to 2024. It is our considered view that enhanced stakeholder engagement can lead to greater audit impact, and enable the Supreme Audit Institution in delivering envisaged value and benefits to citizens.
Today, we welcome the Fourth Estate as part of our stakeholder engagement programmes, to explain in detail our process and procedures; our standards, methodologies and terminologies to enable you to understand and interpret our reports accurately.
The citizens of the country constitute our largest constituent and the media is more accessible to them than our audit reports. It is therefore important that the National Audit Office engage the media to increase its papulation reach and ensure accurate dissemination of audit reports.
Ladies and Gentlemen
The International Community has recognised good governance, including accountability and citizen engagement, as a means to the achievement of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Sustainable development depends on the effectiveness of public policies and services, underpinned by efficiency and equity in resource generation, allocation and management. It also depends on the effectiveness of oversight institutions that promote transparency and accountability and the strength of public scrutiny to prevent mismanagement and corruption and optimise government performance.
Citizen engagement can strengthen independent oversight institutions to hold public officials accountable for the use of scarce public resources and for performance of stated objectives. Elected and appointed public officials who make decisions and implement them are often subjected to pressures that might conflict with the goal of serving the public interest.
Supreme Audit Institutions make significant contributions to their societies by bringing accountability, integrity, and transparency to government. These contributions are maximized when the SAIs are able to communicate the value of their role in government and the results of their work to citizens and other stakeholders.
Ladies and Gentlemen
The media are an important external oversight player due to their capacity to raise the profile of an issue and reach a broad audience. For many people, the media are their main source of information and news about the functioning of the government.
The media can greatly increase the outreach of SAI strategies for enhancing visibility of audit reports, draw attention to key findings and highlight the need to monitor compliance with audit recommendations.
I implore you all to engage with my team on the presentations they will be making, so that you may leave this workshop with increased knowledge and understanding about the work of the NAO. Ultimately, we hope the increased knowledge will motivate you to report more on our published audit reports for the awareness and benefit of the general citizenry. We will continue to access your publications and pursue opportunities to increase our engagement with media including providing trainings to help build media capacity in understanding and reporting on audit reports.
Let me end with the following quote from Joseph Pulitzer, a US Congressman and newspaper publisher during the late 19th Century.
‘’We are a democracy, and there is only one way to get a democracy on its feet in the matters of its individual and national conduct – that is by keeping the public informed about what is going on. There is not a crime, a swindle, a vice which does not live by secrecy. Get these things out in the open, describe them, attack them, ridicule them in the press and sooner or later public opinion will sweep them away. Publicity may not be the only thing that is needed but it is the one thing without which other agencies will fail”.
JOSEPH PULITZER
Whilst wishing you all a very fruitful and interactive session, I have the singular honour and privilege to declare this workshop open.
Thank you