Pacific Island auditors trained on financial audit practice areas

Auckland, New Zealand: The Pacific Association of Supreme Audit Institutions (PASAI) is delivering a series of webinars covering financial audit practice areas for its members from today.

58 staff (37 female and 21 male) from the government audit offices of Fiji, Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) National office, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Tuvalu participated in the remotely accessible capacity building training.

This first webinar of the series is designed to provide participants with essential insights and practical strategies to enhance their audit planning processes.

One of the course facilitators, PASAI Program Director, Susana Laulu, said the webinar will provide practical tools to help audit offices refine their current processes with help from PASAI’s own regional financial audit manual.

“By increasing understanding about the importance of planning an audit and the key components for effective planning, we aim to enhance the quality of financial audits in the Pacific.

“This webinar will equip staff with the knowledge and tools needed to tackle financial audits whether they are experienced auditors or new to the field,” she said.

Senior Advisor at the Office of the Auditor-General of New Zealand, Logan Moore, is also facilitating the webinar series, held for about 2 hours each month until June 2026.

Senior Advisor, International team and Audit New Zealand Manager Narisha Poonsamy, shared her experience of Public Sector Entities audit planning.

PASAI acknowledges the support of the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) and the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT).

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Contact information:

Susana Laulu, Program Director PASAI
E: susana.laulu@pasai.org P: +64 9 304 1275

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Pacific Island auditors trained on performance audit practice areas

Auckland, New Zealand: The Pacific Association of Supreme Audit Institutions (PASAI) is delivering a second series of 10 webinars covering performance audit practice areas for its members from today.

41 staff (24 female and 17 male) from the government audit offices of American Samoa, the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) National office, FSM Kosrae, Fiji, Guam, Tonga, Vanuatu, FSM Yap, FSM Chuuk, Palau, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea participated in the remotely accessible capacity building training.

PASAI Program Director, Mike Scott, is keen to build on the first webinar series he delivered from February 2024 that covered the fundamentals of auditing the performance of government service provision.

“During each webinar, I will talk to a panel of guest practitioners from different international audit offices, opening the conversation to questions and comments from the webinar audience,” he said.

The first webinar will cover project management of an audit with guest panellists from the Office of the Auditor-General of New Zealand. The remaining webinars, held once every 2 months, will cover concepts ranging from evidence collection to risk management and report writing.

The training model responds to the expressed desires of Pacific Island auditors to learn directly from those in the same field.

Mr Scott explained, “The webinars feature practitioners sharing what they have found has worked in successfully delivering impactful performance audits, challenges they have encountered and how they have overcome them, and pitfalls to avoid, giving examples from audits that they have worked on.”

PASAI will make a recording of each webinar available to participants on its online Learning Platform which also includes a forum for participants to share their reflections and experiences.  

Additionally, the first series of webinars will soon be available to Pacific Island performance auditors as a self-paced online learning package that includes practice sheets and quizzes to complete.

PASAI acknowledges the support of the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) and the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT).

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Contact information:

Mike Scott, Program Director PASAI
E: mike.scott@pasai.org P: +64 9 304 1275

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Nine Pacific Island audit offices helped to develop effective audit plans

Auckland, New Zealand: The Pacific Association of Supreme Audit Institutions (PASAI) is delivering the first phase of overall audit planning training to staff from Pacific Island government audit offices from today.

Forty staff (18 female, 22 male) from the audit offices of American Samoa, the Cook Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) National, FSM Pohnpei, FSM Yap, the Northern Mariana Islands, Papua New Guinea, Samoa and Tuvalu are learning how to apply a systematic and risk-based approach to developing an overall audit program.

The 3 phases of the training are being facilitated by 4 of PASAI’s experienced program directors.

“The effective implementation of an overall audit program achieves many audit performance issues, namely coverage, quality, timeliness and impact,” said PASAI Program Director, Sinaroseta Palamo-Iosefo.

She continued, “It is essential for SAIs to ensure that their audits focus on major government priorities, public interest issues and areas prone to risk.

“Realistic planning helps timely completion and submission, tabling and publication of audit reports.

“When properly scoped, audits can achieve their desired outcomes for stakeholders and the public,” she said.

Phase one of the training consists of 5 modules of up to 2 hours each being delivered in online workshops from today until 25 March 2025. These are to build knowledge about audit programs on topics such as the development process and considerations for resource allocation.

Manager, Strategy and Performance from the New Zealand Office of the Auditor-General, Catherine Proffitt, will also join a workshop to share her experience.

Phase 2 consists of facilitated support to develop bespoke audit programs at each participating audit office throughout March, April and May.

Finally, audit office representatives will present their audit programs and lessons learned in early June.

PASAI acknowledges the support of the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) and the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT).

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Contact information:

Sinaroseta Palamo-Iosefo, Program Director PASAI, Auckland, New Zealand
E: sina.iosefo@pasai.org P: +64 9 304 1275

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