The Training and Development Committee of the Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) recommended that the GCC General Secretariat follow up on the signing of the memorandum of understanding with the King Fahd National Library and coordinate the visit of employees from member SAIs to the INTOSAI Development Initiative (IDI) to strengthen capacity.
The committee reviewed the implementation report of the training program on "Auditor's Responsibility for Suspicions of Fraud Discovered During Audit Work", which was approved within the training plan and which was implemented by the National Audit Office (NAO) of the Kingdom of Bahrain in April 2024. The report model was approved by the Committee for the upcoming training programs.
During the 36th meeting recently held in Doha, Qatar, the Committee also discussed the proposal of the State Audit Bureau of Kuwait to amend the arbitration form of the GCC research competition, and to set rules and regulations for the preparation of working papers submitted in training programs and activities.
Furthermore, the Committee decided to review and update the implementation guide for training programs in the GCC countries issued in 2015, and the general framework for the implementation of seminars and conferences, workshops and programs to include the joint decisions of the GCC SAIs issued in 2019. In addition, the Committee considered the possibility of having just one combined guide, provided that the relevant manuals were reviewed within the framework of implementing a new initiative within the next strategic plan.
The meeting recommended “Adopting Modern Technologies in Auditing Work” as the topic of the third Gulf symposium for approval by the SAIs’ Undersecretaries.
On a related note, the NAO participated in the second meeting of the Working Group assigned to follow up on the strategic plan for training of GCC SAIs, which was held in Doha recently.
The team called on the GCC SAIs to provide the NAO with an update on the implementation of initiatives from the strategic plan so that a comprehensive follow-up report could be prepared and submitted to the Training and Development Committee.
At the meeting, the implementation of strategic plan initiatives assigned to member SAIs were also discussed, such as supporting their respective employees to obtain specialized professional qualifications in the audit field, and the types of certificates granted by each organization.
It is noteworthy that the NAO has completed the implementation of its strategic initiatives, as it prepared the training plan for the years (2024 and 2025), which was approved by the Head of the SAIs at their 20th meeting held in October 2023 in the Sultanate of Oman.
The meetings were attended by Ms. Aysha Ahmed Adam, Director of Human and Financial Resources, and Ms. Qotoof Abdul Wahab Naqi, Training and Professional Development Supervisor at the NAO.
