Press Release

Pacific Regional Audit Initiative Consultant Meets with ONPA

Ms. Kerry McGovern, Public Audit Expert and consultant from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), visited ONPA for one week starting on November 13, 2007. Her visit to the FSM is a part of the Pacific Regional Audit Initiative (PRAI) to improve public auditing across the region. She met with the National Public Auditor Mr. Haser Hainrick and his staff to discuss and obtain pertinent data to identify specific areas where regional support could be helpful to members of the Supreme Audit Institutions ( SAIs ). During her visit to Pohnpei, McGovern also met with the Pohnpei State Auditor and his staffs to discuss her work and the objectives of the PRAI.

The objective of the PRAI is to raise Pacific public auditing to uniformly high standards. In this current Technical Assistance study, Ms. Kerry McGovern and 2 other consultants will prepare diagnostic studies for 14 regional SAIs and identify areas in which PRAI could design and facilitate regional supports for SAIs members across the region. The PRAI design was approved by the 23-member South Pacific Association of Supreme Audit Institutions (SPASAI) at their 2006 Congress meeting in Saipan within the context of the broader Pacific Plan to strengthen economic growth, sustainable development, good governance and security through regionalism. This Technical Assistance has been coordinated by the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat (PIFS), with supports from Pacific regional institutions including the ADB, Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID), the Government of Japan and members of SPASAI.

As part of this study, PRAI study team will visit fourteen SAIs including the audit offices in Palau , RMI, Cook Islands, Tonga , Fiji , Solomon Islands , and PNG. The team will provide a report containing the results of such effort in early February 2008.