Reflections on integrity, auditor Uka’s parting shot

For 41 years, economist-cum-chartered accountant Nkondola Uka served Deloitte, an audit, tax and business advisory firm, where he rose through the ranks to become its managing partner.

He was also the lead partner in Deloitte Corporate Finance and Tax Malawi.

In his parting shot during a farewell party hosted in his honour in Blantyre last Friday evening, the man who started his journey on July 11 1983 with a salary of K250 per month emphasised on integrity as the bedrock to preserving professional integrity.

Mr. Uka is quoted as having said: “In as much as the standards change and become more complex, but the core principles of integrity remain there.”

In his illustrious career, Mr. Uka, who joined Deloitte after completing his Bachelor of Social Science in economics from Chancellor College, then a constituent college of the now unbundled University of Malawi, was in 1996 appointed partner of the Zimbabwe and Malawi firm and two years later rose to the post of Deloitte Malawi managing partner.

During his era at Deloitte, Mr. Uka mentored and trained scores of young audit professionals, including Illovo Sugar (Malawi) plc managing director Lekani Katandula who said he owes his professional growth to him. Mr. Katandula worked for Deloitte Malawi for 19 years.

Integrity builds trust and in his farewell speech he called on people to trust numbers more than human beings. I cannot agree more. Integrity is indeed everything, not only to audit or accountancy professionals, but all of us.

When I read Mr. Uka’s farewell story, my memory took me to audits by the National Audit Office (NAO) which highlight wastefulness, abuse of funds, lack of supporting documentation and general lack of accountability in Malawi Government ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs).

I also reflected on Cashgate, the plunder of resources at Capital Hill through dubious payments by both public officers and private businesses exposed in September 2013, which prompted one diplomat to describe the country’s public finance management system as “a leaking bucket” where they could no longer pour their resources into.

Coincidentally, while Mr. Uka was bidding farewell in Blantyre, the Institute of Internal Auditor-Malawi (IIA-M) was meeting by the shores of Lake Malawi in Mangochi where Malawi Stock Exchange chief executive officer John Kamanga stressed the need for audit professionals to embrace technology and counter cyber-attacks.

The theme for the IIA-M conference was ‘Be the change: Internal audit in the era of disruption’.

Befitting theme, I must say. The call for change cannot be emphasised.

Naturally, every time the NAO audits are out, fingers point at internal audit functions as lacking or being weak to implement controls.

But hey, while audits mostly examine adherence to set systems and standards in terms of procurement, supply and payments, it should be everyone’s responsibility to play by the rules.

Internal auditing puts in place controls in organisations and to ensure that systems are working whereas external auditors or auditing involve testing of the systems set by internal auditors.

Unless we reflect and change our mindset in the management of resources at our disposal, fraud will continue to haunt us both in the public and private sectors.

Many times the frauds and abuse thrive because issues unearthed by auditors in their reports never get acted upon by responsible offices or law enforcement agencies. The auditor can only report issues, but cannot act to correct or remedy the challenges. Someone else has to do the clean up.

Yes, the auditors need to be ahead of the game to smell such irregularities and report them accordingly, but some of their misses may be due to negligence, lack of training or appropriate tools to do their work. This calls for more capacity building.

In one of his recent write ups, auditor Richard Chambers said during his time as chief executive officer of The Institute of Internal Auditors, his major worry was the prospect of a high-profile ethical lapse by a member of the profession because that could tarnish them all.

Mr. Chambers’ fear should be everyone’s concern across the board. If only we embraced integrity as a nation as preached by Mr. Uka, surely, Malawi will be a better place to live and thrive.

Happy retirement Mr. Uka.