To remain relevant in the twenty-first-century economy, auditors in Lagos public service must adapt to information communication technology, ICT, and its application to auditing functions.
According to Lagos State Head of Service, Hakeem Muri-Okunola, the evolution of the digital economy at the global level has significantly changed the way business enterprises operate.
In his words, it has also brought about the generation and display of financial data online in real-time and overwhelming rapid adoption and implementation of e-business technology.
This, he believed, has led to new challenges for auditors, especially in the area of effective control, saying to catch up with this trend and remain relevant, auditors must fully embrace and adopt relevant technological tools to attain accuracy and efficiency in their service delivery.
According to him, ICT tools and techniques directly impact the audit function in diverse ways, some of which are performance, reporting and decision making, monitoring scope and quality of output and in the area of audit phase.
As professionals, he said the people and stakeholders rely on them for a transparent system, saying it is, therefore, necessary that they work in compliance with their legal and regulatory frameworks and requirements in order to garner public trust.
Muri-Okunola said it is also important that you continually take advantage of forums like this capacity-building retreat to develop yourselves.
Muri-Okunola made the submission at this year’s annual retreat for Lagos auditors, organised by the office of Lagos State auditor-general, themed “ICT and auditing as inseparable twins towards ensuring accountability and probity, saying the theme was selected to highlight the imperative of integrating technology into the functions of auditors, for greater transparency and efficiency.
He spoke through Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Finance, Hundogan Temitope.
In his welcome address, Lagos State Auditor-General, Salami Sikiru, said the theme of the retreat was in line with the fourth pillar of the THEMES agenda of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu’s administration.
According to Sikiru, in a bid to make Lagos a 21-century economy, government has continued to build the capacity of auditors through training so as to raise competent professionals towards realising a transparent and accountable system.
The auditor-general also informed that over the last one year, his office has fully digitalised the state’s auditing processes, competerised the state’s financial statements, acquired active data and ICT software as well as expanded the auditing scope of the state.