Thirty- five internal auditors from four different companies attended an in-house workshop on Internal Auditing for ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management Systems, facilitated by Fiji Ships Heavy Industries Limited yesterday (Saturday, January 26).

The one day International Organization for Standardization (ISO) workshop was conducted by Mr Gamini Weerasinghe and Mrs Mala Thennakoon of Sri Lanka Standards Institution and internal auditors from FSHIL, Fiji Ports Corporation Limited (FPCL), Fiji Ports Terminal Limited, CJ Patel Group of Companies.

The training was an initial key toward improving the quality and effectiveness of the whole internal audit function as the companies move towards achieving the ISO 9001:2015 certification.

ISO 9001:2015 sets out the criteria for a quality management system and the standard is based on a number of quality management principles including a strong customer focus, the motivation and implication of top management, the process approach and continual improvement.

FPCL chief financial officer, Roshan Abeyesundere officially opened the workshop and reminded participants on the importance of their roles in their companies.

“Currently the responsibilities of internal auditors are increasing from the traditional view of financial audit to risk management issues, performance and compliance issues. Therefore, internal auditors need to equip themselves with new skills for them to cope with these changing situations,” Mr Abeyesundere said.

“Internal audit is crucial for enhancement of good public or private sector governance. By providing independent objective assessments of whether public resources are economically, efficiently and effectively used to achieve the set objective, internal auditors assist their organisations to achieve accountability and integrity, improve operations, and instill confidence among citizens and other stakeholders,” he added.