Company Profile
SEND GHANA, a policy research and advocacy organization, was founded in 1998. The vision of SEND Ghana is “A Ghana where people’s rights and well-being are guaranteed” with a mission “to promote good governance and equality of men and women in Ghana”. It is headquartered in Accra, with network offices in Tamale and Salaga.
Job Description
Terms of Reference for Project Audit
Promotion of civil society participation in national and international MAPs for sustainable cocoa supply chains (Project Number: P7739)
Introduction
The Ghanaian organisation SEND Ghana is the local project executing organization of the project " Promotion of civil society participation in national and international MAPs for sustainable cocoa supply chains ". The project is funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Co-operation and Development (BMZ). The INKOTA-network is the German executing organization of the project responsible for the reporting to BMZ.
The total duration of the project is from 01st March 2024 to 30th April 2028. The project objective is for Cocoa farmer representatives and civil society organisations from Ghana and Germany contribute recommendations for action for all stakeholders in the cocoa sector so that measures for living income and pesticide reduction can be developed and implemented in a targeted manner.
As part of the project management requirements, SEND Ghana and INKOTA are required to contract an external auditor for the project components implemented by SEND Ghana. Project audit will be done annually on financial records of the project.
We therefore wish to invite proposals (technical and financial) for the audit of statement of accounts of the local project organisation (SEND Ghana) in respect of the financing of the project P7739 for the period 1st March 2024 to 30th April 2028 on annual basis starting from 1st March 2024 to 31st December 2024 (Year 1) from qualified independent audit firms registered with the chamber of commerce or national auditors’ association in Ghana.
SEND Ghana and INKOTA-netzwerk intends to have a framework agreement with selected firm to audit yearly project financial statements for maximum of 4 consecutive years. Please ensure your proposal (technical and financial) responds to the entire project period.
Objectives Of The Audit
The objectives of the audit are:
Examination of the financial regularity, through the control and evaluation of the exactness, exhaustiveness and fairness of the various accounting transactions, either in full or by sampling (minimum 75% sample size), according to need and risk evaluation (before and during the course of the audit);
Control of the management of the project funds provided, including:
- Control and evaluation of transactions, expenditures and receipts compared with the basic project documents (project description, programs of activities, contracts, budgets, etc.);
- The project funds transferred during the project term;
- All interest earned during the project duration on the project funds transferred to the local project partner;
- Other revenue arising from project activities;
- Verification and confirmation of the completeness & correctness of project-relevant documents;
- Verification of the project transactions under the following aspects:
- Conformity of expenditure authorizations and validity of the supporting documents,
- Arithmetic exactness of the accounts, supporting documents and financial statements,
- Exactness of the bookkeeping entries,
- Allocation of expenditures in conformity with the budget(s),
- Financial statements in agreement with the accounts,
- Verification that local contracts are in conformity with local legislation currently in force,
- Verification that receipts are exhaustively and regularly accounted for,
- Control of advances, accrued or in abeyance, justification for amounts on the books for more than one month before closing,
- General verification of bookkeeping,
- Any other verifications that the auditor may consider useful in the execution of his mandate.
Examination and verification of the economical conduct of business and efficient use of financial resources, through the control and evaluation of
- Minimization of the cost of the resources utilized for the activities, always ensuring an appropriate quality;
- Comparison of expenditures with corresponding budget positions and the control and evaluation of any explanations for divergences (based on the last valid financing plan);
- Brief analysis of the deviations between budgeted and effective expenses. Investigation through the persons responsible for the project of the justification for important budget deviations (+/- > 20 % of the budget) for individual budget lines. Deviation in overall budget will need justification;
- Evaluation of costs on human resources and social security contributions with regard to local customs, the laws in the respective project country, in particular compliance with the contracts and the lawful payment of the corresponding funds;
- Control of the existence and respect of purchasing procedures. If necessary recommendations for the improvement of existing procedures to guarantee, as much as possible, the best quality/price ratio. Verification that prices and rates conform to local practice;
- Control of the procured inventory, its whereabouts and its appropriate use.
- Control that the vouchers are correctly labelled (each voucher must contain a clear reference to the specific project)
Examination and verification of the appropriateness, the relevance and the functioning of the Internal Control System, through the control and evaluation of
- Internal organization (structures, functions, tasks, authority, responsibilities, methods, procedures, etc.);
- Existence, respect and application of laws, regulations and instructions;
- Protection of resources and assets;
- Prevention of errors and fraud;
- Quality and viability of the information system and the reporting;
- Verification of compliance with all agreements fundamental to the project.
Documents Of Reference
The following documents are considered as basic references for the carrying-out of the audit:
| Legislation |
- National legislation, particularly as concerns the field of finance and the control of accounts;
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| Project |
- Project agreement and financing plan including Annex 1 – 12 signed 1st March 2024.
- Project proposal
- Any other documents concerning the project.
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| Accounting |
- Accounting documents subject to the audit;
- Activity Reports;
- Financial Report for the period 01. March 2024 to 31st December 2024;
- Transaction list and corresponding expenditure receipts;
- Bank statements;
- Any other information requested by the Auditor.
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How To Apply
- Please send your proposal by 5th August 2025 via email to amankwah@sendwestafrica.org and Chardac@inkota.de before 17:00 GMT
- Note: A copy of practising certificate and qualification or a printout of the register entry must be presented with the proposal.
Date and Place of Audit
The audit must be carried out in the office of SEND-Ghana (A 28 Regimanuel Estate, Nungua, Accra) and should be completed in one month from the date of engagement agreement signature.
The final version of the respective audit reports must be available by 28 February for the auditing of the previous year
Closing Session Of The Audit
After completion of the audit, but before leaving the project or organization headquarters, the auditor will hold a closing session with the persons responsible for the project (Directors) and the staff concerned. The project coordinator and Finance lead of INKOTA-netzwerk will attend the closing session by video conferencing. The session will address remarks and the results of the audit, bring up significant weaknesses in the administrative and financial management and will propose solutions to the problems brought out during the audit.
General Approach Of The Auditor
The auditor undertakes to ensure continuity in the approach to and in the method of the audit, even if there is a change in the person carrying out the physical audit.
Content Of The Audit Report
The Auditing Firm shall report their observations about the system of accounting and internal controls, together with a detailed list of any significant weaknesses that come to the Auditing.
Firm’s attention during the course of audit. The report includes recommendations as to how these weaknesses may be eliminated and how controls and records might be improved.
The report shall be drafted in a way to provide a comprehensible statement of essential revealed misrepresentations in the financial report or in the books of account (including fraud, mistakes or non-compliance with legal regulations). It is not the subject of the Audit Report to audit all the books of account, however any false statements detected by the auditor during the course of the audit shall be documented as part of the management letter and the Auditing Report.
The report needs to include:
- Brief description of the audited organization and project, objectives of the project, period covered by the audit.
- Objectives and extent of the audit.
- Declaration of full disclosure delivered by the project management or the organization audited.
- Opinion of the auditor on the financial statements of the project. The certificate should provide a clear conclusion regarding compliance with the binding agreements set out in the project contract. The final auditor's opinion shall contain the following (minimum requirement):
"We hereby certify that we have audited the statement of accounts of (name of the project- executing agency in the developing country) in respect of the financing of the project (name) on the basis of the following terms of use made available to us (list of commissions and documents). To this end, we have inspected the books and vouchers and report that:”
Subsequently, the audit should provide concrete substantive statements on the following questions:
- To what extent are income and expenditure properly evidenced by supporting documents?
- To what extent did the expenditure substantiated comply with the application and the approval and correspond to the purpose of the application and the final financing plan? Are any deviations from the last valid financing plan described in separate explanations?
- To what extent have the proven revenues, which are accounted for as owncontributions of the local project partner, the target group and/or other bodies in the project country, been correctly presented in their amount and their origin explained in accordance with the specifications?
- To what extent were the conditions of the donor specified in the project agreement observed? How were the conditions responded to? On which points have these conditions not been complied with and are reasons given for non-compliance?
- What are the positive or negative features of the project that need to be mentioned?
- Financing statement according to Annex 1 in the latest version, structured according to the numerical evidence of the use of funds and presented in the same way as the sample attached to this document. The comparison of planned and actual expenditure is made in the currency in which the expenditure was incurred. The audit does not convert the amounts into euro amounts.
- In case of deviations of the actual expenditure from the planned expenditure according to the last valid financing plan (target) of more than 30 % of the individual estimates (upper positions in the financing plan), these deviations must be explained and justified separately.
- If the actual expenditure (actual) differs from the planned expenditure according to the most recent financing plan (target) of the sub-items by more than 30 %, this must be explained and justified separately.
- List of inventory acquired by the project during the accounting period.
- Summary of the structure of the internal control system and its operation, opinion on the internal controls, recommendations
- Report on the respect of the contract clauses
- Management Letter
The financial information contained in the audit report is to be expressed in GHS. All the documents are written in English. The audit report is signed by the person responsible for the audit, as well as by the legal representative of the firm of auditors.
After completion of the audit the auditor will send a digital draft of the report for comments.
After receiving the comments, the auditor will send 3 legally signed copies of the report to SEND.
The audit report must contain all information and have the proper layout in accordance with the guidelines for an external, independent audit under the BMZ funding title for Engagement Global / Bengo.
Conservation of working documents
The auditor will correctly keep and preserve all internal working documents for a period of ten years as of the completion of the audit, even if local legislation prescribes a shorter period.
Audit Payment and Budget
The budget for this assignment is approximate € 3,300.00/year, payable in Ghana Cedis. Applicable local withholding taxes shall be applied. Competitive proposals within this budget are encouraged. Payment of the auditing body will be made after the audit certificate is completed by
SEND-Ghana.
Note
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