Interview with Chief Auditor Ms Grace Nelwamondo, team leader for the winning team from Namibia

Bengt Sundgren, performance audit manager of AFROSAI-E: Congratulations to the SNAO Prize. What is your immediate reaction to winning?

Grace: Surprised, a good Surprise. It is a good motivating factor. A good acknowledge factor. I felt happy.

Bengt: What is the clue to your success?

Grace: Good planning, but we were also able to make room for new things that came up during the project. We were able to embrace changes. We were able to step out of the conference room. We asked and asked and asked questions.

Bengt: How did your office make the winning of the prize official in Namibia?

Grace: The auditor general invited the media for a press conference. It was a lot of media cover. It was mentioned on the national TV channel, both in the evening and morning news and also in some other TV channels. It was also mentioned in several news papers. It was a good marketing tool for our office and also an encouragement for the staff.

Bengt: How are you going to celebrate that you won?

Grace: I have also had my birthday. I went to the cost as a combination of my birthday with winning the price.

Bengt: Are you going to compete also for the 2010 competition?

Grace: If we meet the criteria we will submit a report.

Bengt: Is there something that you want to add?

Grace: It is good that Sweden have this competition. It is a good motivating factor and it is also a good promoting factor for performance audit. It will also be interesting to see how performance auditing is done in Sweden and to see the country. It also shows that our office has a high performance audit standard.

Bengt: Once again congratulations to the whole team!