Finance & Contract

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Audit
It is good practice to ensure that public funds are put to use in accordance to agreed upon purpose and procedures.

The European and Ugandan public therefore expect that those handling public money are held accountable for its use.

The funds channeled to Uganda from the European Union General Budget (EUGB) and the European Development Fund (EDF) must be spent in accordance with the applicable legislation/contractual conditions and be used for their intended purpose.

In order to achieve this objective, the EU Delegation uses external audits among other tools.

What's an audit?
An audit is the analysis of facts ("what has been done") compared to criteria ("what should have been done") in order to express an opinion.

Several types of audits are foreseen by the EU: Financial audits, Systems audits, Performance audits and Forensic audits.

  • . Financial audits: this is where the auditor expresses an opinion on whether the financial report of the project presents, in all material respects, the expenditure actually incurred and the revenue received, in conformity with the applicable agreement terms and conditions. The opinion is based as well on whether the funds of the project have in all material respects been used in conformity with the applicable agreement terms and conditions.

. System Audits: is where the Auditor expresses an opinion on the design and operating effectiveness of the internal control system of the project. This enables the EU Delegation to be certain that public funds are managed through authorized/appropriate channels.

. Performance Audits: the objective is to audit the sound financial management of a project (economy, efficiency and effectiveness principles). The Key question here is: are things being done in the right way? are the right things being done? are we getting value for money?

. Forensic Audits: the main aim is the application of auditing skills to situations that have legal consequences (i.e. investigation of a fraud or presumptive fraud in order to gather evidence). Focus is generally on financial aspects, procedural aspects and the role of staff/employees.

How does the EU Delegation perform the audits?

An annual audit plan is planned by the EU Delegation on a yearly basis to manage the audits. 

For the year 2009, 34 audits were planned and 28 audits have so far been realized. For the year 2010 the Delegation foresees approximately 30 audits.

On the basis of a 3 year framework contract (September 2008 to September 2011 ), the EU Delegation uses the auditing skills of the following Ugandan firms: Data Figure & Co, Jasper-Semu & Associates & PKF .

To ensure that the EU Delegation does not get "surprises" from projects concerning misuse of public funds, audit skills of another Uganda firm "Sejjaaka, Kawaase & Co" are used to review on a quarterly basis financial reports from projects.