Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim

Assalamualaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh and a very Good Morning

YAB Dato’Sri Najib bin Tun Razak, Prime Minister of Malaysia;

Honorable Ministers

Mr Shashi Kant Sharma, Chairman of ASOSAI and Comptroller & Auditor

General of India;

Dr. Sun Baihou, Deputy Auditor General of SAI China on behalf of the

INTOSAI Chairman;

Dr. Josef Moser, Secretary General of INTOSAI and President of the

Austrian Court of Audit;

Excellencies & Ambassadors

Distinguished Delegates and Observers, Ladies and Gentlemen,

1. I am deeply honoured, on behalf of the audience, to welcome and to

express our sincere appreciation to our Guest of Honour, the Honourable

Prime Minister of Malaysia, Dato’ Sri Mohd Najib bin Tun Hj Abdul Razak,

for his gracious presence this morning at the 13th Assembly of the Asian

Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions or ASOSAI despite his very

busy schedule. As host to this very important event, SAI Malaysia is

indeed very grateful to the Malaysian Government for giving us full support

in organizing it. I must also mention here the generosity of the Malaysian

Government for sponsoring the participation to date of some 348 auditors

from 54 countries to be trained by our National Audit Academy under the

Malaysian Technical Cooperation Programme (MTCP) since 2007. This

shows Malaysia’s firm commitment towards capacity-building and

knowledge-sharing for the benefit of Government auditors internationally

2. I am of course very pleased to extend a warm welcome to all ASOSAI

delegates to Kuala Lumpur, many who are here for the first time and hope

you will enjoy your stay here. I understand this is one of the best-attended

ASOSAI Assembly with a total of 180 delegates from 40 member countries.

We also like to welcome our friends from International Organization of

Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI), African Organization of Supreme

audit Institutions (AFROSAI), European Organization of Supreme Audit

Institutions (EUROSAI), INTOSAI Development Initiative (IDI),

Confederation of Asia Pacific Accountants (CAPA), GIZ, World Bank and

ADB for their kind presence.

3. The 6th ASOSAI Symposium which will be held on Thursday carries

the theme “Leveraging technology to enhance audit quality and

effectiveness”. This is aptly a relevant theme as auditing, like most

professions, could benefit through greater use of ICT for speed, accuracy

and integrity. This symposium will be attended by 800 participants from the

ASOSAI delegations as well as from the Malaysian public and private

sectors. In conjunction with the Symposium, we are also organizing an

exhibition featuring IT product and services associated with auditing in

tandem with the theme of the symposium.

4. As the incoming Chairman of ASOSAI, I would like to acknowledge

with gratitude to all of you for your kind support and cooperation to us, SAI

Malaysia. We look forward to work closely with all member SAIs, INTOSAI,

regional sub-groups, IDI and International organizations in the coming

years in the areas of capacity building and knowledge sharing to respond to

current challenges affecting public accountability and good governance.

5. In closing, I would like to express my gratitude to the strong support

and cooperation extended to us by various Malaysian government

ministries, departments and agencies to ensure a resounding success for

this Assembly and the symposium. To our guests from overseas once

again welcome to Malaysia. Thank you.