OPA hosts financial management workshop for govt employees

The Office of Public Auditor is now conducting a second series of seminars called Certified Government Financial Manager Training Workshop, which aim to equip select government employees with knowledge on government financial management.

The six-day seminar, being held at the Chamolinian Room of the Hyatt Regency Saipan, started Tuesday and will run until next week, said Public Auditor Mike Sablan.

Sablan said the seminar is a follow up on the first series of seminars they held in January at the Hafa Adai Hotel in Garapan.

More than 40 participants from different departments and government agencies are participating in the seminar.

Sablan said that OPA again invited Pete Rose, a special training consultant with the national office of the Association of Government Accountants, to conduct the courses that he had developed specifically for government financial management.

Rose has been conducting financial management training among public auditors and finance experts from CNMI, Guam, Kosrae and Pohnpei.

Sablan said the seminar’s funding came from a special supplemental grant from Office of the Insular Affairs worth $20,000. He said they were given another funding based on the response from the first seminar. He credited deputy assistant secretary of the Department of the Interior David Cohen for supporting the seminar.

Sablan said this DOI grant recognizes the responsibility of the government “to provide the training if we expect our workers to do their job better.”

So far, the DOI has given the Public Auditor’s Office a total of $40,000 for the first and second series of training.

Sablan said the local chapter of the Association of Government Accountants is also hosting the event by providing the facility and the refreshments.

The training is about enhancing accountability in the government, said Sablan. “With the diminishing resources and the competing demands on these diminishing resources, the best way to better manage our government is to manage it more efficiently and this is a big step toward improvement of our management resources.”

Apart from a professional development standpoint, Sablan said he believes that this type of training is part of government personnel’s personal development.

The workshop aims to prepare employees who have accountability responsibilities such as in finance, budget, federal grants management, procurement and others.