The Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) Qatar organised a three-day training programme on ‘Internal Audit Quality Assessment -Performing the Reviews’ at the Doha Marriott Hotel recently.
Alfredo Dautzenberg, a well-known expert from the IIA Inc USA was the trainer at the programme. He has conducted many courses and several assessments across 25 countries.
The IIA standards relating to quality performance of internal audit requires organisations to maintaining a quality assurance and improvement programme.  The two components are internal and external assessments of all aspects of internal audit activity and communicates the results to senior management and the board.  
While internal assessment can be performed by staff with sufficient knowledge of internal audit practices, the external assessments must be conducted at least once in every five years by a qualified, independent reviewer or review team outside the organisation.
“The accreditation plaque from the IIA post successful QA assessment will remain as a proud possession for every audit unit. It is beyond auditing the auditor and more to do with adherence to standards and quality. It is recommended to undergo quality assessment as per the standards,” said Dautzenberg.
“It was an opportunity to develop an understanding of overall structure or framework for quality assurance activities, identify auditing standards, practice advisories and to recall which tools are used for each phase of QA process,” said Rajeswar Sundaresan, board member of the IIA, who formulated the course.  
“It is good to see immense interest envisaged by the audit community including  nationals for this course. We surely achieved the objectives of learning application of quality assessment concepts to improve internal audit effectiveness and efficiency. The case studies, the real life examples and interactions between participants made it unique,” said Hassan al-Mulla, chapter president.
Mohamed al-Emadi, chief auditor of Qtel who participated in the event suggested periodical specialist group interactions by chapter members for knowledge sharing. He lauded the value add derived from the training.
“Alfredo imparted the right knowledge, shared his vast experience, meticulously covered every aspect and conducted examination to test the competency and to provide feedback to participants. He deftly handled the IIA standards from both technical and academic perspectives,” said Girish Jain, who co-ordinated the event.