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Vanessa Jaigopaul

Audit Office of Guyana

Audit Supervisor (ag)

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My Fellowship

My Canadian placement:

Office of the Auditor General (OAG) of British Columbia.

My Canadian audit team:

I was involved in:

  • an audit on the Community Economic Recovery Infrastructure Program – Destination Development, led by Daria Babaie, Director, Performance Audit, with Alexander Gunn, Manager, Performance Audit; and
  • an audit on the Toxic Drug Crisis: Oversight of Harm Reduction Initiatives, led by Laura Hatt, Executive Director, Performance Audit, with Daria Babaie.

My most valuable learning:

  • That collaboration, engagement and communication throughout the audit phases, within the Audit Office (team and management) and with the auditee and other key stakeholders, will enable the team to overcome challenges and achieve their goals.
  • That as a team leader, one is always adjusting… there are circumstances and unforeseen issues that may arise, but adjusting is essential to managing these successfully. However, your destination never changes and you will get there!

How my Canadian colleagues and mentors helped me:

My Canadian colleagues and mentor enabled me to experience their process of planning audits by participating in or observing advisory meetings, subject matter approval and brainstorming sessions, training related to performance audits, and general discussions. It was inspiring to observe the cooperation among the staff of the Performance Audit department to overcome obstacles and achieve their planned deadlines.

What I enjoyed most:

I enjoyed knowledge-sharing discussions and presentations by various performance auditors at the offices visited and in-person training sessions which included role playing and group activities to ensure effective learning in the classroom. This also enabled me to interact with various persons who shared their knowledge and firsthand experiences.

My audit plan:Occupational Health and Safety Inspection Process

I developed my audit plan project with the guidance of my mentor at the OAG of British Columbia, Alexander Gunn, Manager, Performance Audit & Related Assurance.

The connection to my country’s development priorities:

The Government, through the Ministry of Labour and in collaboration with relevant stakeholders, is making efforts to improve the working conditions and environment in Guyana by promoting the integration of safety and health principles in workplaces to reduce occupational accidents and diseases.

To guide efforts, the National Occupational Safety and Health Policy 2018 and the Decent Work Country Programme 2017-2021 were established to provide frameworks for achieving national development objectives and supporting the operationalization of the United Nation’s 2030 Agenda. The audit places focus on Government’s efforts in promoting a safe working environment for all workers, including women and migrant workers, which is included in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 8.

How CAAF and my host office helped:

By providing me with:

  • Professional skills building and knowledge enhancement sessions delivered by the appropriately learned persons, who also shared their experiences to improve learning experiences in the classroom.
  • Rich and authentic knowledge sharing and mentoring sessions with like-minded persons from various audit offices across Canada.
  • A forum by which knowledgeable and experienced persons can discuss and guide me to develop a well scoped and defined audit plan that is achievable and realistic.

The skills and knowledge I improved by developing this plan:

  • Recognize the importance of obtaining and presenting the appropriate information that will enable senior management to make informed decisions on the topic, auditability and audit focus.
  • Realize the power of engagement, collaboration and communication – with the auditee, my management and other key stakeholders – to overcome challenges and achieve deadlines.

My future impact:

The new knowledge I’m most excited to share with my colleagues:

  • Scoping the audit properly is essential to achieving goals set.
  • Constant engagement, collaboration and communication with all key stakeholders throughout the audit phases is a gamechanger in achieving goals.
  • The knowledge that can be gained from conducting interviews with key stakeholders in the Knowledge of the Business phase of the audit – that ideas about where to hone your audit focus can come from the most unlikely places, maybe a stakeholder unrelated to the Audit Office or the auditee.
  • The need for the Subject Matter Approval Document, an action plan for implementation of recommendations from the auditee, and continuous follow-up to determine status of implementations of recommendations made.

The difference I hope to make:

Performance Audits on topics addressing the implementation of the United Nations 2030 Agenda will provide key stakeholders with objective and reliable information that will enable better managed government programmes and better accountability to the National Assembly and the public.

My professional goals:

  • Improve the capacity of my Office’s Performance Audit Department by applying the leadership skills and knowledge I gained to my future projects, influencing those I can to properly manage projects and achieve goals in a timely manner.
  • Empower my colleagues to enable them to work effectively to achieve the Department’s targets and the Office’s strategic goals.
  
 

My Experience

    
 

The most Canadian thing I did was…

Visiting the beautiful art galleries and museums in Ottawa, Winnipeg, Fort McMurray, and Vancouver and literally running to catch the bus!!

My favourite cultural experience in Canada was…

The Tulip festival held in Ottawa in May, which is to celebrate the gift of tulips to Canadians by the Dutch, to represent international friendship after World War II. Icing on the cake was the arrival of Princess Margriet from the Netherlands who opened the ceremony and then drove by spectators.

Something few Canadians know about my country is…

That Guyana is in South America and not the Caribbean, largely because it is a former British Colony and the only English-speaking country in South America.

My Fellowship experience in one sentence:

Definitely a game changer, also remarkable and enriching… to have had the opportunity to benefit from the wealth of knowledge and experiences shared by mentors, training facilitators and officials from numerous offices visited across Canada.

My Fellowship in a single word:

Phenomenal.

Now that I have completed the Fellowship…

I will aim to build my office’s capacity to achieve management’s strategic goals, by communicating lessons learned, sharing knowledge and empowering others to function at their best.

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