The ASEANSAI Symposium on Good Governance was held on 27th November 2012 in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Darussalam. This symposium was the second activity of the ASEANSAI Knowledge Sharing Committee since the establishment of ASEANSAI on 16 November 2011 in Bali, Indonesia.
The Symposium was attended by the delegates from 10 ASEANSAI Member States namely Jabatan Audit Brunei Darussalam, National Audit Authority of the Kingdom of Cambodia, the Audit Board of the Republic of Indonesia, the State Audit Organization of Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Jabatan Audit Negara Malaysia, Office of the Auditor General of the Union, the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, the Commission on Audit of the Republic of the Philippines, Auditor General’s Office of the Republic of Singapore, Office of the Auditor General of Thailand and the State Audit Office of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
Yang Mulia Pengiran Haji Abdul Rahman bin Pengiran Haji Mat Salleh, Auditor General of Brunei Darussalam in his opening speech stated that the Symposium served as a platform towards closer cooperation between ASEANSAI Member States through the exchange of knowledge, experiences and lessons learnt. He also pointed out emphasized that it is imperative that ASEANSAI Member States work together to enhance their capacity in order to carry out their fiduciary roles which consequently can help achieve Good Governance and contribute towards sustainable human development.
His Excellency Mr. Hadi Poernomo, Chairman of the Audit Board of the Republic of Indonesia as Chairman of ASEANSAI in his speech clearly highlighted that SAIs in the ASEAN community have the role to promote Good Governance in their countries through their duties in the field of auditing whereby their roles are portrayed in the audit results in which they provide recommendations that aim at enhancing Good Governance. He further stated that the implementation of Good Governance has a very big impact on the realization of a clean and dignified government, which in turn will be able to lift the national economy and people’s welfare.
This was followed by a keynote address by Meanwhile Yang Berbahagia Tan Sri Dato’ Setia Ambrin bin Buang, the Auditor General of Jabatan Audit Negara Malaysia as Chairman of the Knowledge Sharing Committee emphasized on the SAIs’ roles in promoting public sector governance. He pointed out stated that an auditor can provide insight to and assist decision makers through value for money audits by assessing which programmes, activities or projects are feasible and working, the sharing of best practices and benchmarking information. He also mentioned that an auditor can assists public sector agencies to look forward by identifying trends and bringing attention to challenges before they become a crisis through the utilization of the risk based auditing approach to identify such risks and recommendsing on how to manage the risks to these agencies.
Among the highlights of the symposium were the presentation of papers by experts from each ASEANSAI member state and a forum on ‘Impact of Audit on Ensuring Good Governance’. In the concluding session of the Symposium, the Head of ASEANSAI Secretariat reported on the activities conducted under the four committees viz the Strategic Planning Committee, the Rules & Procedures Committee, the Knowledge Sharing Committee, and the Training Committee.
Overall, the establishment of ASEANSAI has demonstrated the spirit and cooperation among the members in promoting Good Governance which is in line with the ASEAN Vision 2015.
