Over 80 delegates from 20 member countries gathered in Mombasa-Kenya to attend the three day annual meeting event of WGEI whose main objective was to chart a way forward in auditing oil, gas and minerals.

The Auditor General of Kenya Mr Edward Ouko who hosted the conference welcomed participants to Mombasa and appreciated the Chairperson of the Working Group on the Audit of extractive industries and also the Auditor General of Uganda Mr. John F.S Muwanga for entrusting SAI Kenya with the role of hosting such a major event.

Mr. Muwanga appreciated members for heeding to the call to attend this important meeting. He emphasised the need for members to look for ways of effectively auditing extractive industries to ensure good governance and promotion of sustainable development.

He noted that due to the fact that the audit of extractive industries (oil, gas and minerals) is a new field which faces several challenges the Working Group faces a key task of addressing these shortfalls. He expressed pleasure towards members’ efforts thus far.

Mr Muwanga noted some of the challenges as; limited technical capacity of Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) in the audit of extractive industries, lack of enabling legislation that can allow SAIs access the needed oil and gas information for audit, and inability to retain well-trained specialized staff in SAIs to continue audit of oil and gas sector arising from competing opportunities for them out in the economy

Members discussed strategies of how to promote audit of extractive industries within the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI) community in order to support good governance and promote sustainable development for the UN post 2015 agenda, now Sustainable Development Goals. These were agreed upon in 2015 in New York to be achieved by 2030. They consist of 17 goals, mainly their aim was to achieve: Poverty eradication, infrastructure development, environment Protection and equality

This was the third annual conference since the working group on Audit of Extractive Industries was established by INTOSAI in 2013. The first meeting was held in Uganda while Norway hosted the second meeting last year.

Delegates at the Conference centred their deliberations around the theme: “The role of Supreme Audit Institutions in ensuring sustainable growth from extractive industries.”,development of extractive industry guideline and future trainings.