Part of high level corrupt practices in the public sector of the economy, experts say, is attributable to technology incompetence of government auditors which may spell doom in the near future if nothing is done to correct the anomaly.
But with the 1st national seminar on e-government audit on building IT audit competence for government auditors slated for next month in Lagos, it is expected that IT auditors working in both public and private sectors will be better equipped technologically for the challenges ahead.
The Managing Consultant of ACL Audit Software, Christian Ekeigwe had told IT journalists in a press conference last week in Lagos that for auditors to continue to be relevant and to maintain its role in governance, they must up skill to an acceptable technology competence level in the knowledge economy.
According to him, security controls consideration for e-gogernment systems should be a life-cycle issues, adding that it should be considred right from the stage of conception all the way through to the retirement or decommissioning of the systems. “Government auditors must be part of process of e-governance technology adoption. This provides opportunity for security controls to be built as opposed to the current situation where system security controls are retrofitted in efficietly into system only after major errors and fraud reveal the controls weakness” he said.
With the national e-government being put together by ACL Audit Software, he was very optmistic that the forum will go a loong way in addressing the gap in current e-government initaitives, including absence of audit e-readiness.
He identified auditing as a key pillar of governance, noting that if auditing is weakened, by technology incompetence, the accountability framework will breakdown. The fight agaist corruoption will fail, all because corruption will become even more efficient with technology unless it is controlled appropriately with effcetive e-governmnet audit process, he said.
“Fraudsaters are moe competent than auditors. Fraulent activiies in governanace are attributable to technology incompetent of most auditors. Nigeria can no more continue to go this way. There should be critical allocation of govenment infrastructures. Auditing has gone beyond pen and paper. Auditors should have access to government systems. If something is not done at this stage, there would be corporate collapse of government activities. Critical information infrastructure protection should be implemented with immedaite effect,” Ekeigwe noted.
The forum which is expected to attract auditors in federal, state and local governments, the parastatals and the lawmkers, according to him, will enable participants to get the necessary technology skills and knowledge to handle auditing jobs in the information society.
While calling on auditors to wake up for the challenges ahead, he said that it is only a well orchestrated technology audit competence could help e-government withstand the challenges of cybercrime which has continued to grow at geometric progression in Nigeria and the rest of the world.
According to him, experience has shown that there is an increased risk of audit failure where auditors do not understand information technology, noting that audit process is weakened because such auditors cannot appropriately assess IT risk, cannot audit evidence buried in digital media and cannot interpret audit evidence that are available only in e-format.
With this, he said that International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) has warned that it has become impossible to audit computerised systems with only manual procedures, adding that it is instructive that auditors acquire relevant knowledge and skill in information communication technologies.
“Information and communication technologies make fraudsters efficient, the same way legitimate business managers are made efficient with technoogy. A fraudulent transfer funds wire transfer will be as efficient as a legitimate one. This is why it is very dangerous to dabble into e-governanace withou due consideration,” he added.
While using alarm on security of government infrastructures, he said that the current pell-mell adoption of egovernment technologies can be controlled if government auditors get the right training that will enable them exert security influence throughout the systems development lifecycle.
He lamented on how government computers leave government control into the hands of retiring government officials without the system being sanitised prior to exit. As a result of this, he said that there is increased risk of sensitive government data flowing into less benign hands.
But if govenment auditors are e-ready, he noted that they will identify such risks and ensure that IT resources are subjected to full life-cycle systems controls.
Autor(en)/Author(s): Emeka Aginam
Quelle/Source: Vanguard, 01.11.2006
