By Doris Flores Brooks, Program Director, PASAI

The Association of Pacific Islands Public Auditors (APIPA) held its annual conference from 26 to 30 August 2024 in Koror, Palau, with a theme of “Bridging the Gap of Public Accountability and Transparency”. There were more than 400 participants in attendance from at least 10 different countries.

The first annual APIPA Conference was held in June 1989 in the Marshall Islands with fewer than 50 participants. Among the original attendees were Atmita Jonathan who is the Audit Manager of the Republic of the Marshall Islands Office of the Auditor-General and Haser Hainrick, the Public Auditor for the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM).

The APIPA members have grown to include the 10 audit offices using Generally Accepted Government Auditing Standards (GAGAS), namely the SAIs of American Samoa, FSM National and the 4 states of Chuuk, Kosrae, Pohnpei and Yap, Guam, the Marshall Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands and Palau, plus SAIs Fiji and Samoa who follow the ISSAIs. The US Department of the Interior, Office of Inspector General (DOI OIG) is a non-voting member of APIPA.

The APIPA conference is held mainly to provide training to auditors, finance officers and other government professionals in related fields. This year’s APIPA offered 21 courses in various tracks. The newest addition focused on investigations and included Basics of Investigations, the First Steps of an Investigation and Documents & Fraud Interviewing. Other courses included Basic Auditing, Conducting Audits, Ethical Decision-Making and Auditing Grants. There were several repeat courses such as Basic Governmental Accounting, Grants Management and the Single Audit: What You Need to Know. Attendance at the repeat courses often approaches 200 participants.

The highlight of the conference is the closing plenary session, where the member audit offices select an audit, outline the audit objectives and discuss their findings. This year’s session included the following:

• American Samoa: Accounts receivable of Department of Administration

• FSM Chuuk: The condition of state hospital plus pharmaceutical drugs

• FSM National: Government vehicles

• FSM Yap: The financial audit of the Public Transportation System

• Guam: Guam Homeland Security Office of Civil Defense

• Marshall Islands: Procurement of school buses

• Northern Mariana Islands: Department of Finance procurement of government vehicles and leases

• Palau: The National Health Care Fund

• Samoa: Fraudulent and internal control issues associated with procurement

Participants select the courses they wish to attend and can earn up to 40 hours of continuing professional education.

The annual APIPA conference is conducted by instructors from Graduate School USA with a grant from the US Office of Insular Affairs. This year all the investigative courses were conducted by DOI OIG special agents.

As most of the APIPA principals attend the annual conference there is a principals meeting to discuss various administrative matters to include financial reports, pending audit issues, attendance, the next APIPA host and, this year, the permanent establishment of APIPA as a non-profit organisation in Palau.

The APIPA conference is annually rotated among most of the members. Next year’s host will be the Northern Mariana Islands on the island of Saipan.