Participants at the training
The Audit Service Sierra Leone (ASSL) with support from the European Union completed a two-day training for Financial Auditors on Environmental Accounting in Financial and Compliance Audit. The training was conducted by the State and Resilience Building Contract (SRBC) at the Bintumani Conference Centre on 19-20th January 2026.
The Training is an outcome of the rapidly identified and mapped capacity needs of the ASSL financial auditors to understand environmental issues in public sector financial and compliance auditing, and ensure they are included in the financial statements, to promote completeness and accuracy of financial reporting and management decision-making.
During the opening ceremony, Mr Aiah Gbondo-Tugbawa, Deputy Auditor General who represented the Auditor General, emphasised the relevance of environmental and climate auditing under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and urged participants to actively engage and apply the knowledge gained to strengthen compliance and performance auditing.
The SRBC Team Leader highlighted the growing importance of environmental and climate issues in auditing, stressing that the training builds on previous capacity-building efforts. He noted that the initiative will extend beyond Freetown to the ASSL staff in Bo, Kenema, and Makeni.
The Training Manager, Mr. Philip Goba expressed gratitude to the European Union for their continued support to the ASSL. He encouraged auditors to remain focused, stressing that environmental auditing is an emerging and critical area requiring practical engagement.
The training was delivered using both passive and participatory approaches for transformative learning. This participatory approach will offer opportunities to enhance the practical skills of auditors in obtaining environmental data, integrating activity-based costing and environmental cost accounting methods in the examination of financial statements/documents, and ensuring that environmental costs and liabilities are included in financial reporting by the public sector entities.
Copyright –Published in Expo Times News on Wednesday, 21st January 2026 (ExpoTimes News – Expo Media Group (expomediasl.com)
