Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) has organised the first Auditors’ Day event in Oman, bringing together governance and assurance experts from across the Sultanate.
Around 60 internal audit managers and specialists from both the public and the private sectors attended the event at PDO’s Learning and Development Centre.
The objective was to establish a national auditing platform to facilitate cross learning, best practice sharing, and encourage more networking in the auditing community.
Raoul Restucci, managing director, PDO, said: “Auditors can bring huge strategic value and independent oversight to any organisation or business to ensure things are being done in the right way, to identify and proactively mitigate risks, and to disseminate learning and share best practices.”
“PDO sees auditors as valuable partners who deliver efficient, sustainable, and viable solutions to business challenges in a rapidly changing world and help us to manage our controls and systems that we operate effectively at corporate and functional level,” added Restucci.
“This event will help drive governance standards to the next level, both in PDO and across Oman,” observed Restucci.
The event featured speakers from a range of organisations, including the State Audit Institution, the Institute of Internal Auditors, Ernst and Young, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Shell, as well as PDO.
Areas covered the strategic value of internal auditing, its role in the rapidly evolving cyber security landscape, Omani law, conflicts of interest, and internal auditing data analytics and ‘conduct-risk’ methods. There were also networking opportunities and a panel discussion at the end.
Fathiya Al Farsi, internal audit manager, PDO, said: “We hope this event will establish the seed for a more effective auditing culture and community in Oman. Such a national platform will help boost Omanisation in the profession, in addition to boosting standardisation of audits on many fronts.”
The event will become a regular fixture and Oman LNG has agreed to host the event next year.
