By Victor Bieni
ASABA- The President, Society for West African Internal Audit Practitioners (SWAIAP), Noble Patrick Nzechukwu
has said that the group is out to bring lasting solutions to the abysmal internal auditing state in Nigeria and by extension West Africa.
Noble Patrick spoke to our reporter in Asaba, Delta State Capital while Fielding questions from some group of Journalists on the activities of the Association in West Africa.
According to SWAIAP Boss present trend on Auditing focuses mostly on external auditing and recently on investigation which he described as post-transactional curative remedies that bothers only on financial materiality at the expense of internal auditing, which he said amounted to pre-transactional preventive remedies that transcends all perspectives of organizational functions.
“My interest here is where emphasis lies in our clime- curative rather than preventive”, he added.
In another development, Noble Patrick stated that internal Auditing Professionals had beginning to get conscious of the relevance of internal auditing as an instrument for the attainment of organizational objectives through our external exposures to relevant international institutions.
However, that the cost of getting trained as internal auditor and the eventual certification remain elusive to majority of the Practioners.
To this end, he noted that SWAIAP will bridge the gap and lapses created by other Professional bodies to address this Challenges in Nigeria, West African Region of the Continent, Africa and globally.
“Because the cost is fixed by parent bodies at hard currency, even though we pay in Naira conversion for the training. Besides, certification remains exclusively outside our shores, forget about the attachment of the name of member country. Again, we have various institutions offering diversified internal auditing, including GRC components.
SWAIAP according to Noble Patrick remains the veritable instrument, the only last resorts for Stakeholders (TT) Professionals to unlock the various opportunities offered by our present situation.
SWAIAP is a Change Agent with the under- listed objectives in his words:
” To divert the attention of both our public and private sectors from curative remedies to preventive remedies”.
“”To reduce the cost of training internal auditors in our clime”.
“To converge the diversified internal auditing into one umbrella and prepare students for various certifications at highly reduced costs and prepare experts for practice”.
“To affiliate with international institutions for local certification using global best standards”.
For this purpose, he then call on every member of SWAIAP to see this as a clarion call to put our names on marble by actively contributing to the development of the Association for good governance structure.
Speaking further, he noted that SWAIAP- Institute of Internal Auditors was incorporated in the USA in 1948; today it is located in 170 countries out of 195 countries in the world with about 170,000 memberships.
Also, the financial expert stated that, International Organization for Standardization was founded in 1947 with Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland; interestingly that today it has 163 member countries, each country maintaining its membership role.
Make a projection,
Historically, SWAIAP was incorporated in 2018, how many chapter countries and membership strength would it have by 2030? he put a challenge to Members of the Association to work hard for membership drive.
He Stated further that, Conscience is a self inflicting injury, if the members of the Association make hard work their watchword to participate in all the activities of SWAIAP from the role played at its formative stage, success and sky is the limit of the Association”.
” I implore all of us to work as a team to lay a solid foundation for SWAIAP to take off; be part of the team, be part of the ongoing debate. West Africa and indeed, the world is waiting for us”, he admonished SWAIAP members Globally.
