By Chisomo Phiri
Students who are doing internal auditing program and other related programs in various higher learning institutions in the country have been urged to start developing a team work habit among themselves if they are to know more things within the field.
The call was made by Lass Phiri, an internal audit manager at NICO Holdings Limited who was speaking on Friday during ‘May Awareness’ event organized by Society for Internal Auditing Students(SIAS) at Malawi University of Business and Applied Sciences (MUBAS)
Phiri said:”You cannot do something right alone. As an internal auditor, you have always to interact with colleagues so as to learn new things. Internal auding is too much involving and needs team work.”
She added that for them to be more productive future Internal auditors, they must also develop a habit to obtain internal auditing skills and training that will help them to adopt new changes that come in the field.
Phiri further emphasized on the importance of having a wide knowledge on various skills especially communication skills among internal auditors for them to perform their duties effectively.
“As future internal auditors, be more knowledgeable on various skills related to internal auditing especially communication skills for you to perform your duties effectively.
“You cannot communicate to a client who is in need of your auditing services if you do not have enough communication skills. By now, you must develop a habit to gain various skills including communication skills which are very important in internal auditing,” she said.
On his part, Reserve Bank of Malawi (RBM) Director of Pension and Insurance Paul Nyirenda who was a guest of honour at the event encouraged the students to embrace the use of technology if they are to become more productive internal auditors in future.
“Things are changing day in and day out. Technology becomes more useful nowadays than before. So like it is everywhere, in internal auditing, there is also a need of using technology in things like research presentations, audit observations and even when you are writing audit reports,” he said.
Nyirenda who is part of people who pioneered the introduction of internal auditing degree program at MUBAS went on to appeal to institutions and organizations to conduct frequent internal auditing trainings for them to accomplish several objectives.
In his remarks, Ketson Kayuni, a third year internal auditing student at MUBAS and a president of Society for Internal Auditing Students (SIAS) said their society organises the’ May Awareness’ event every year with an aim of bringing together internal auditing professionals from various organizations and institutions to inspire and tell them what happens at industry.
“The ‘May Awareness’ is an important event for us who want to become internal auditors.
“Briefly, the event’s main aim is to inspire, encourage and guide Internal auditing students for them to become productive internal auditors in future,” he said.
Kayuni then thanked the guest of honour Paul Nyirenda and all invited internal auditing professionals for sparing their busy schedules and attended the event.
“We did not expect them to honour our invitations. To say the truth,their presence at the event means a lot to us.
“They have shared with us a lot of things and we hope these will help us to improve where we are weak. We have been encouraged, we have been guided and we have heard new things that we did not know we will meet in our internal auditing duties. We say thank you!,” thanked Kayuni.
Internal Audit was established by Malawi government in July, 2003 to improve accountability in the use of public resources, reduce potential risks of corruption and financial mismanagement.
