Internal Audit Reports Source: Internal Audit Agency, 2011 3.3.5 Parliamentary scrutiny Parliament continues to employ a number of tools to exercise oversight over the Executive. These include: • Question time on the floor of the House • Committee meetings, and • Special/Ad-hoc committees Processes of the Public Accounts Committee 1. Auditor-General submits a report to the Table Office 2. The Business Committee schedules and lays the Report before the House and then it is referred to the PAC for consideration and report 3. The PAC Secretariat writes to all MDAs queried in the report of the Auditor-General forwarding respective portions of the report that pertains to them and then requests that they forward their responses and comments if any on the report within a stipulated time frame, usually two weeks. 4. A sub-committee of PAC reviews the responses and submits a report to the Committee recommending which MDAs should be invited for public hearing. 5. The PAC then schedules a date for the hearing and instructs the Secretariat to write to all the selected MDAs inviting them to respond to the queries they failed to address sufficiently and/or systemic problems that should be raised for the benefit of all MDAs. 6. A date for the public sitting is published and announced in the electronic media for the benefit of the Press and all interested stakeholders. 7. A public hearing is conducted where auditees are given the opportunity to explain their own viewpoint on the Auditor-General’s queries while Members of the PAC who have studied the issues in detail with the help of the Audit Service Staff cross-examine the auditees. 8. The Committee then compiles its report and makes recommendations on the AuditorGeneral’s Report to the House for debate and adoption. 9. After the adoption of the Report by the Plenary, the PAC secretariat writes to all MDAs named in the report requesting them to implement the recommendations and report back to the Committee within a month. The Attorney-General at this point is invited to commence prosecution of criminal cases referred to that office. 10. The PAC takes a sample of feedbacks and follows up to ascertain the veracity of the reports and progress of implementation of its recommendations. Sixth Annual APRM Progress Report: January – December 2011 50