On 6th September, 2022, Dr. E.O. Osae, Director-General of the Internal Audit Agency (IAA) inaugurated the Audit Committee of the National Council of Curriculum Assessment (NaCCA).
The inauguration was chaired by Prof. Kwame Osei Kwarteng, Chairman of NaCCA. In the opening remarks, he said the essence of the event laid in the fact that audit is an arm of governance which ensures that those who expend the public purse do so with accountability in mind. In this vein, the Audit Committee is established to ensure checks and balances. He added that the inauguration of the Audit Committee of NaCCA was long overdue and since it is a quintessential part of governance, it should not be seen as with-hunting.
Members of the Committee are Mr. Usuman Abdul Razak (IAA Rep and Chairman of the Committee), Mr. Samuel Gyekye-Mensah (IAA Rep), Ms. Harriet Nana Owusuah Aidoo (ICAG Rep), Mr. Kwaku Kyei Ofori and Madam Mercy Asamoa (Reps from the NaCCA Board). The Secretary of the Committee is Mr. Elijah Intsiful.
Delivering his address, the Director-General stated that the Audit Committee is a statutory Committee prescribed by the PFM Act and required to support the Board and Management of NaCCA to deliver on their mandate. He outlined the mandatory, advisory and supporting roles of the Committee. Dr. Osae said the mandatory roles of the Committee as provided under the PFM Act include ensuring Management of the institution implement audit recommendations contained in Internal and External Audit Reports. He mentioned that since the 2021 Auditor-General’s Report came out, there has been a lot of hullabaloos from the citizenry and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) about what was being done by the Auditor-General to retrieve monies stolen. He stressed that since it is not the Auditor-General who implements audit recommendations, it is rather the Audit Committees that the public should hold responsible. The Committee is also required to prepare and submit an annual report on its activities to the Office of the President, to enlighten the President on what is going on at NaCCA, the Auditor-General, to inform him on the progress made towards implementing recommendations in his report, Parliament and the Director-General of the Internal Audit Agency.
The advisory roles of the Committee according to Dr. Osae include advising Management of NaCCA on not only sound financial but also performance audit management practices. The Committee should assist leadership in the mainstreaming of enterprise risk management in its activities in order to ascertain its risk level. He added that if the institution commits one mistake by way of wrongful curriculum assessment, the whole educational system would be affected adversely. On the supporting roles, the Director-General tasked members to support the Internal Audit Unit (IAU) in the preparation and submission of the Risk-Based Internal Audit Plan which would be due by 31st January, 2023. The Committee should equally assist the IAU in the preparation and timely submission of quarterly internal audit reports. He advised members to participate in Entry and Exit Conferences of External Auditors in order to resolve audit issues before the issuance of the External Auditor’s Management Letter.
In concluding, Dr. Osae impressed on members to work diligently so that when the history of NaCCA is written, their names would be written in gold due to their contribution in building control systems in the institution. He pledged the support of the Agency to the activities of the Committee and said information for its work is available on the Agency’s website.
 
