Friday 13 / December / 2024
Muscat: An extraordinary meeting of the Executive Council of the Arab Organisation for Supreme Audit Institutions (ARABOSAI) took place yesterday through video conferencing from Tunisia.
HE Sheikh Nasser bin Hilal bin Nasser Al Mawali, Chairman of Oman's State Audit Institution (SAI), participated in the meeting in which Chairmen of member SAIs took part.
The meeting aimed to prepare a special action plan to face the spread of coronavirus pandemic and its impacts on the capacities of the Arab SAIs from one hand, as well as the activities and programmes of the technical committees and Secretariat General from the other hand.
The meeting started by a speech presented by the Secretary General of the organisation in which he welcomed their excellencies chairmen of member SAIs in the executive council of the organisation.
He indicated the efforts exerted by the organisation toward fostering SAIs contribution to achieve the added value in order to serve development goals in the member states, asking the Lord Almighty to avoid Arab countries and the world as a whole the scourge of this pandemic.
Later, a speech was presented by the Head of the Executive Council in which he reviewed the items of the extraordinary meeting agenda that covered several primary topics such as; a call for organisation’s structures, technical committees and Secretariat General to study the repercussions of the current situation on the performance of SAIs, the organisation and the review of programmes and activities during the next period.
Other items of the agenda were; upgrading the operational plans to be presented during the Executive Council Meeting at its regular session, as well as reviewing the themes of the special plan proposed by the organization to support SAIs in facing the pandemic.
The plan includes several primary themes, for instance, establishing an online learning system and creating groups to develop new technologies for auditing during such exceptional conditions and prepare procedural manuals for such situations.
Besides, the plan suggests preparing manuals and work sheets that can help SAIs to operationalise their field audit practices or remote auditing, example of which is; a work sheet on best practices in the field of executing remote audit tasks using modern communication technologies and SAIs best practices and making them accessible through online platforms.
Also, it is important to focus on auditing Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly those relevant to healthcare sector in several aspects such as; examination and analysis of the most important indicators used in the healthcare sector and which can be used as standards for audit tasks and programs, and providing training on the use of standard (ISSAI 1620) relevant to benefiting from expert views in the field of auditing healthcare sector, as well as evaluating health related policies and programs.
It is worth noting that SAI is a member of the ARABOSAI Executive Council during the period (2017-2020) as it was elected during the 12th session of the ARABOSAI General Assembly held in Tunisia in October 2016.
SAI also chairs the organisation’s Institutional Capacity Development Committee, which convened its 15th meeting in Muscat, September 2019, with the participation of member SAIs of the committee.
