Muscat: The State Audit Institution (SAI) chaired the 24th meeting of the undersecretaries of the GCC Audit and Accounting Bureaus, which was held at SAI headquarters in Muscat on Thursday via videoconferencing.
The meeting saw the participation of member SAIs, the GCC Assistant Secretary General for Legislative and Legal Affairs and SAI specialists.
At the beginning of the meeting, Ahmed Salim al Rujaibi, SAI Deputy Chairman, delivered a speech, expressing his gratitude to the GCC Secretariat General for its efforts in coordinating and organizing the meeting.
He commended the existing level of cooperation between the GCC Audit and Accounting Bureaus and Institutions, as well as the development of joint cooperation activities and programmes and unified audit manuals within the framework of the GCC joint work aimed at protecting public fund and improving the performance in the government sector.
He concluded his speech by affirming that the Sultanate of Oman supports all Gulf efforts aimed at strengthening the cooperation mechanisms and exchanging expertise and experiences among the GCC states in various areas pertaining to financial and administrative audit.
A number of topics listed on the agenda were reviewed and discussed, the most significant of which were the discussion of updating some joint audit work manuals, namely Performance Audit, preparing and drafting audit reports, information technology audit, audit of privatizations, governance audit and public projects audit manuals upon which appropriate decisions were taken.
The meeting also discussed the training plan for the years (2024-2025), and the draft operational plan for the training strategic plan for the years (2023-2025), in addition to reviewing the Sixth GCC Competition for the Research and Studies in the Field of Auditing and the proposal to update its regulations.
Among the topics addressed in the meeting were the Sixth GCC Competition for the Research and Studies in the Field of Auditing on the topic “The Role of Supreme Audit Institutions in Facing the Challenges of Applying Artificial Intelligence in Audit”. The meeting also discussed the proposal to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the INTOSAI Development Initiative (IDI) and King Fahd National Library in related fields.
The meeting concluded with the preparation of a draft agenda for the 20th meeting of chairmen of GCC Audit and Accounting Bureaus, scheduled to be held next October in Muscat.
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