Auditors from 36 countries converge in Mombasa for three-day conference

Auditors from 36 countries will converge in Mombasa County on Wednesday to chart the way forward in auditing oil, gas and minerals.

Over 70 delegates, are expected at the three-day conference, according to Kenya’s Auditor-General, Edward Ouko.

The meeting, to be held at the Pride Inn Resort, said Mr Ouko, would look for ways of effectively auditing extractive industries to ensure good governance and promote sustainable development.

Cabinet Secretary for, Energy and Petroleum, Charles Keter, is expected to officially open the meeting while UNDP Kenya Country Director Ms Amanda Serumaga, would give the keynote address.

“The conference will discuss how to promote audit of extractive industries within the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI) community in order to support good governance and promote sustainable development for the UN post 2015 agenda, now Sustainable Development Goals,” Mr Ouko said in a statement.

Audit of extractive industries (oil, gas and minerals) is a new field and has faced several challenges, leading to the establishment of a working group within INTOSAI to address these shortfalls.

Mr Ouko said some of the challenges are limited technical capacity of Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) in the audit of extractive industries, lack of enabling legislation that can allow SAIs access to needed oil and gas information for audit, and inability to retain well-trained specialized staff in SAIs to continue audit of oil and gas sector arising from competing opportunities for them out in the economy.

It is the third conference since the working group on Audit of Extractive Industries was established by INTOSAI in 2013. The first meeting was held in Norway while Uganda hosted the second meeting last year.

Delegates at the Conference will centre their deliberations around the theme: “The role of Supreme Audit Institutions in ensuring sustainable growth from extractive industries.”