Surveillance audit on for Ilocos Norte gov’t departments

By Leilanie G. Adriano

Staff Reporter

Laoag City—Moving on beyond the usual government transactions, the Philippines first fully International Organization for Standardization (ISO)-certified provincial government, Ilocos Norte is now implementing a surveillance audit.

As a standard procedure, a surveillance audit is performed by an external auditor to ensure that the provincial government’s document tracking system follows strict guidelines and procedure based on ISO 9000 series of quality management standards after a period of implementation.

“As lead auditor, I have to challenge them because we had been following the procedure ever since and that we have mastered it already specially us, being in the frontline departments,” provincial treasurer Josephine Calajate said.

Ms. Calajate said the provincial government faces a stiffer job today now that they are expected to perfect the ISO standards and pass the accreditation again.

Various department heads and staff of the Ilocos Norte government attended a briefing about the surveillance audit set July 14-15which aims to measure the effectiveness of its processes and strive to meet more difficult objectives to satisfy the public.

Continual improvement is one of the core quality management principles of ISO covering the 30 offices and departments of the provincial government.

For over a year now, the compliance seal was conferred to the Ilocos Norte government on February last year or a day before the province’s 195^th founding anniversary.

The ISO certification seeks to provide government transparency and good governance and assure investors that the province means business.