Internal auditors can stamp out corruption - Ndive Thomas

The role of internal auditors is still to come to the limelight in Cameroon, but for the country to effectively stamp out corruption, much must be done to give internal auditors their place in the society.

A certified Auditor and member of ONECCA, Ndive Thomas, was one, amongst three Cameroonians who attended the recent London Institute of Internal Auditors, IIA , Conference in July, and as he sheds more light on the conference and the role of internal auditors, he reminds the Cameroon government that the time to get professionals to man its Vision 2035 programme is now! He spoke to The SUN’s Managing Editor, Norbert Wasso Binde, in this interview.

Mr. Thomas Ndive Molungu, you are a certified internal auditor, who recently precisely in the month of July attended an international conference organised by the IIA (Institute of Internal Auditors) in London. What was it all about? Thank you. The international conference is an annual event by the IIA, to advocate best practices in the internal audit profession and also teach members on new regulations, new IT technology pertaining to the profession of internal audit.

In a country like Cameroon, what do you think is the significance of internal audit?

The internal audit profession, like in other countries plays a very significant role, that internal auditors normally should be part of the management teams of companies. Unfortunately in our context, we try to put more weight on management controllers, who have a different role compared to internal auditors.

Management controllers in our English context are like cost accountants, they are there only to control cost, but internal auditors are people who are supposed to work directly with the executive and normally in other countries, even with the audit committee in the board, so that they report directly to the board and not even to the General Manager.

So what do you think an internal audit brings to companies?

They bring a comprehensive approach to evaluate and assess risks in companies and enhance their ability to monitor risks in companies. If you cannot evaluate risks, you cannot identify fraud, because risk goes with fraud and corruption.

Now if you are in a company where the internal audit is not effective, you are unable to identify the risk in the company and probably identify fraud risk and even how to combat fraud in the company, but with a good audit department, you will be able to identify, assess and monitor the risk as they approach the company.

Why do you think the profession of internal audit is still very very undeveloped in our country?

I had a discussion with somebody from the Supreme State Audit Bench while in the UK on this same subject; the problem is that in Cameroon, we have pushed most of our internal controls to the Supreme State Audit, which does not have the human resource capacity to manage the whole country.

The Supreme State Audit cannot do annual audit or annual controls in our companies for a year, taking into consideration the fact that the nation is vast, the companies are many, the resources are diverse and it is difficult to have Supreme State Auditors who are professionals in all these domains. Even in the internal audit profession, there is specialisation.

There those who specialise in banking, maritime, oil and gas, etc, and take the case of Cameroon where just assume there are 10 State control auditors, they cannot be able to control all these fields.

What major recommendation do you propose then?

Organisations should instil internal audits in their organigrams, it should be a profession and they should be given the role to play as internal auditors because, it is not enough to appoint somebody as an internal auditor, but also giving him the role to play.

Remember there are some companies in Cameroon that do not even have procedural manuals, that’s the job of an internal auditor to see that policies and procedures are in place, and that these policies and procedures are followed.

Who really becomes an internal auditor, is it just anybody?

The internal audit profession is governed by examination, scrupulous examination organised by the IIA and any successful person becomes an auditor, and can work in an audit department, but becomes an internal auditor only after certification.

Meeting our Vision 2035 objective, is it still a long way to go especially without real internal auditors, how do you look at it?

I don’t think it is late; it is just for us to start the process. We are living in a globalised world, where things are constantly changing so fast, so we need to start now, it’s just a matter of training people for the purpose. An economy cannot be built without professionals in diverse fields; those are the people who can man an emerging economy.