Internal audit degree course on the cards
The Institute of Internal Auditors Malawi (IIA-M) says 30 students have expressed interest to join the Bachelor of Commerce—Internal Audit (Bcomia) degree programme to be administered the Polytechnic, a constituent college of the University of Malawi.
IIA-Malawi president Kingsley Mulewa said on Saturday in Blantyre that all that remains is the formalisation of their registration into the programme.
“I hope that internal auditors will encourage their children and colleagues to opt for this prestigious profession when selected for the university college studies,” he said.
The institute has lobbied for the course to help enhance the internal auditing profession to make it more vibrant and responsive to the needs of the market.
All along, there has been no specific course for internal auditors and were only training as accountants.
Currently, there are 190 members of the institute with only 24 being certified internal auditors (CIAs) and three of them has been awarded the certified risk management assessor (CRMA) qualification.
Mulewa said it is essential for companies and organisations to ensure that they have well capacitated internal audit functions because internal audit is an important assurance provider, best practice advisers and the right hand of the audit committee.
“Unfortunately, internal audit is still a very poorly understood profession by some executives that we do not expect to have this knowledge gap,” he said.
What is worrying though, according to Mulewa, is that despite the profession making some inroads, some leaders in the upper echelons of the companies still have little understanding of the value of the internal audit.
In Malawi, since the institute was established, it has made strides in promoting the value of internal audit.
Mulewa said internal audit is a multi-dimensional discipline in the sense that while external audit’s main function is to provide assurance to stakeholders regarding the accuracy of the organisation’s financial statements and whether the organisation is a going concern, internal audit provides assurance on literary every aspect of the organisation from procurement and supply chain management to information technology, finance, the culture of the organisation.
The institute last year opened a CIA testing centre at Techno Brain in Lilongwe following requests from members that a local testing centre be opened to cut on money spent travelling to neighbouring countries to sit for CIA exams.
