Page 6 - Internal Auditor Middle East - December 2017

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All thanks and appreciation to the JUNE 2017 WWW.INTERNALAUDITOR.ME Comment on the “Self Service Audit Analytics” article:
author of the article, Mr. Ninad Identifying serial offenders us-
ing forensics analyzing digital
Pradhan, on such an important article evidence I would like to thank the author of the article and the editor
IA is the Second Line of
“The Journey to Excellence in Internal Defense in unstable for addressing the matter of Self Service Audit Analytics and
business environment
Self-service analytics benefits
Audit”. He pointed out two important for internal Audit its relationship with continuous audit, as all studies firmly
points, the first of which is conducting an
independent assessment by an external The Journey to confirm that the use of technology in internal audit is
auditor every five years and informing Excellence in inevitable. Due to the importance of this matter, it has been
the Audit Committee of its results, and the Internal Audit addressed frequently in the research literature of internal
second is calling for a quality assessment by audit; especially in the basic principles of internal audit,
the Chief Audit Officer rather than the Audit
Committee due to its “no favorable” impacts which stipulate that the internal auditor should have a
on the assessment process. forward-looking approach, and accordingly the view of
However, despite the importance of the traditional or historical audit has changed to analytical
aforesaid two points and the fact that the and immediate audit.
independent assessment process constitutes
one of the governance elements that must be In my opinion, the internal audit profession will change
observed by the companies and is considered as INSIGHTS ON GOVERNANCE, RISK MANAGEMENT AND CONTROL
an obligatory requirement by the regulators for drastically in the coming years, with a higher degree of
the companies listed on the stock markets and dependence on technology in auditing and analysis. This requires Chief
performing securities-related activities, companies believe
that this step is unnecessary and increases their financial burden, so Audit Executives to invest more and more in the available technologies
they implement it at the lowest possible cost, which negatively impacts and analytics, especially the “real-time data analysis” based audit.
the objective of such a step and leads to a lack of professionalism and Moreover, Chief Audit Executives shall develop standards and indicators
transparency. The Chief Audit Officer’s call for conducting quality directly related to available data, so that internal auditors can promptly
assessment must be done in coordination with the Audit Committee in
order to interact with it and adopt its observations. Finally, achieving perform audit tasks with less time and effort, and without disturbing the
excellence in internal audit and quality enhancement depends primarily audited entities to obtain required data.
on the employees’ belief in the culture and values of the establishment.
This has been expressed by the author of the article; however, retaining This requires, as the author pointed out, developing the skills of the
employees who do not believe in this culture and values is one of the audit team, using the appropriate tools and software and attempting to
biggest threats facing establishments and must be dismissed in this case. benefit from the IT Department to facilitate and eliminate any technical
Furthermore, excellence must be maintained and transferred through
the establishment’s talented and excellent employees who are capable of barriers to the optimal use of available technologies.
sustaining success, professional and organizational innovation, noting Bassem Hijaz
that the management’s role in this regard is attempting to attract and
retain them. Chief Audit Officer of Nadec and Vice President of the Jordan
Dr. Ayman Fathi El Ghabari Internal Audit Association
Financial Advisor
State Audit Bureau in Kuwait QIAL, CIA, CPA, CISA, CCSA, CFE, CRISC
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