Charles W. Hester, a certified Public Accountant and Forensic CPA from California who is also a Certified Fraud Examiner and Specialist and Certified Government Financial Manager, Moses Russel, an auditor from the Office of National Public Auditor of the Federated States of Micronesia National Government, Pohnpei, Haser Hainrick, Peer Review Team Leader and Public Auditor, FSM National Government and Annes H. Leben, Peer Review Team Member, Pohnpei State Government were already half way of their review on the OPA’s public documents to see if Palau is following the standard policy and procedures for auditing.
The period covered for review is from June 1, 2005 to December 31, 2007.
The group who are members of the Association of Pacific Islands Public Auditor don’t have conclusions yet of the review but they are hoping to be able to issue a draft of the report by end of the week.
Hester said every three years members of the Association go out as a team and conduct an external period of review of quality control to see if they’re operating under the government’s quality standard procedure.
The team makes assessments and if there’s any findings, they make suggestions to improve the procedures.
The goal of the review is to eliminate impairment, the group said.
Although Palau’s staff needs professional development, the group admired Palau and other members of the Pacific Islands for not violating the standards and for maintaining the professionalism despite limited resources.
Palau’s Public Auditor Satrunino Tewid said that the review is an important element of the process because it corrects any deficiencies in their policies and procedures.
“Standard procedure is important because it provides consistency and credibility in our works,”he said.
“The last review was in 2005 and the team submitted their report to the Office of the President. They made some suggestions to improve our management and we did that, we corrected the mistakes and we will continue to improve our policy and procedures,”Tewid said.
