By Achie Boan
The Auditor General of Liberia, Hon. P. Garswa Jackson, Sr., has been unanimously elected as Chairman of the Economic Community of West African States Supreme Audit Institutions (ECOSAI), following the conclusion of the third ECOSAI meeting held in Accra, Ghana.
Auditor General Jackson’s election came during the regional gathering of Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) from October 7 to 11, where he was elected unopposed by representatives of 12 member states.
He succeeds Hon. Johnson Akuamoah Asiedu, Auditor General of Ghana, who previously chaired the organization.
The meeting brought together top auditing officials from the ECOWAS region to discuss key governance and public finance issues, with a major focus on strengthening audit effectiveness and accountability in public institutions.
In one of the highlights of the event, Auditor General Jackson delivered a well-received presentation on Liberia’s recently implemented Audit Follow-up Mechanism. The system, developed by Liberia’s General Auditing Commission (GAC), is designed to track, monitor, and ensure action on audit recommendations. It is built in alignment with international auditing standards (INTOSAI) and Liberia’s Public Financial Management framework.
Jackson detailed the use of tools such as a corrective action plan, audit recommendation tracker, follow-up dashboards, and strengthened inter-agency collaboration. These, he noted, aim to improve compliance and institutional accountability across government entities.
Following his presentation, fellow Auditors General lauded the initiative as both practical and replicable, particularly in a region where the adoption of audit recommendations has often been limited due to weak enforcement and lack of institutional ownership.
The outgoing chairman, Hon. Akuamoah Asiedu of Ghana, emphasized the need for strong executive support in improving compliance, citing Ghana’s own efforts to create commercial courts for audit-related cases. His remarks resonated with attendees, who collectively agreed that inter-institutional collaboration and political will are critical to turning audit findings into tangible reforms.
Participants at the meeting agreed to contextualize and adapt Liberia’s audit follow-up framework across member states to boost performance and ensure accountability in public financial management.
Alongside Auditor General Jackson’s election as Chairman, his counterparts from Guinea-Bissau and Benin were elected First and Second Vice Chairpersons, respectively.
Other major topics discussed at the ECOSAI meeting included the ECOWAS Levy Audit, the Member State 4.5% Community Levy Subvention Audit, and strategies for collaborative audit planning related to the ECOWAS Community Levy.
As Chairman of ECOSAI, Hon. Jackson will now lead the regional body for a two-year term, guiding its efforts to enhance audit standards, foster transparency, and promote good governance across West Africa.
