Call for Audit Consultancy at Climate Smart Agriculture Alliance Zambia

1.0 Background

Registered in 2018, the Climate Smart Agriculture Alliance Zambia (CSAAZ) is a local organization which was established to share and combine experiences, skills and knowledge on promoting Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) farming practices and to ensure that such measures are supported with appropriate technology, policies and legislation. The Alliance’s mandate is derived from government’s commitment to enhancing resilience of livelihoods and production systems to climate variability and other related risks among the farming communities in Zambia.

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The Alliance hopes to build a platform of dedicated stakeholders that will help address the effects of climate change on Zambia’s agriculture sector and contribute to the attainment of national and global goals of food security and poverty reduction, through increased adoption of CSA practices. Specifically, the Alliance’s objectives are:

• To catalyse and support the uptake and up-scaling of CSA practices of small-scale farmers in Zambia taking into account Africa’s interests, aspirations and circumstances.
• Alliance members to collaboratively support strengthening of local/national policy and programme design capacity, skills development, and access to CSA information.
• To establish a CSA platform for partnership engagement, resource mobilization through multilateral and bilateral investment, and a results-based funding mechanism to increase financing for scaling-up CSA practices and support.
• To facilitate capacity building and inventory of targeted farmers and staff of member organisations involved in promoting CSA at national, provincial, district and community levels in Zambia.
• To engage with relevant government ministries, private sector and other stakeholders to enhance knowledge, promote policies, and support programmes that effectively integrate CSA sustainable food production systems that are environmentally sound, socially just and economically viable.

The achievement of such a national task and the specific objectives requires having well defined and developed internal procedures, policies and processes to support the Coordinating Unit of the Alliance. This Scope of Work (SoW) therefore outlines the activity of compliance checks on its policies and financial management for 2020, 2021 and 2022.

2.0 Justification

Currently, the Alliance has a Constitution, Financial Manual and Human Resources Manual in place, which were developed by mutual desire to collaborate and work together as a member-based institution. The constitution provides high-level guidance as to how the Alliance shall be governed. The Climate Smart Agriculture Alliance Zambia (CSAAZ) draws its membership from both International and Local CSOs who recognize such guiding documents as key to organizational sustainability.

The Alliance is currently seeking to engage a reputable audit firm or individual to conduct statutory audit of its books for the duration from 2020 to 2022 to ensure that the resources under the care of the Alliance are safeguarded for the intended use and ultimately creating the anticipated impact. This Scope of Work outlines the activities that shall be undertaken to arrive at the final product of Financial Statement.

3.0 Specific objectives and activities

3.1 Activities:

The assignment will aim at achieving the primary objective of producing a complete Audited Financial Statements through the activities detailed below:

• Review of Literature: this will involve referring to and analyzing related written materials. These materials include but not limited to Alliance constitution, strategic plan, Zambian Labor Laws, finance systems (manuals) or documents, conditions of service for comparative organizations and relevant government development plans/ documents
• The audits will be performed in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and International Standards of Auditing (ISA) Facilitate the Development of the Audit plan; an outline of the Audit plan will be developed and shared with Board Members and selected Alliance members. An interim meeting will be held to populate the outline.

3.2 Specific Tasks

The specific objectives of the audit of CSAAZ books are to:

• Express an opinion on whether the fund accountability statement for the CSAAZ-funded programs presents fairly, in all material respects, revenues received, costs incurred, and commodities directly procured by CSAAZ for the period audited in conformity with the terms of the agreements and generally accepted accounting principles (including the cash receipts and disbursements basis and modifications of the cash basis).
• Evaluate the recipient’s internal control related to the CSAAZ programs, assess control risk, and identify significant deficiencies including material weaknesses. This evaluation will include the internal control related to required cost-sharing contributions.
• Perform tests to determine whether recipient complied, in all material respects, with agreement terms (including cost sharing/counterpart contributions, if applicable) and applicable laws and regulations related to CSAAZ funded programs. All material instances of non-compliance and all illegal acts that have been occurred or are likely to occur is identified. Such test should include the compliance requirements related to required cost sharing contributions if applicable.
• Determine if the recipient had taken adequate corrective action on prior audit report recommendations.

4.0 Timeframe

The Auditor is expected to spend 12 professional days on the assignment

• 2 Days Literature review and understanding of the organization’s operations
• 5 Days conducting Audit procedures with the Coordinating Unit of CSAAZ (January/February 2023)
• 5 Days preparation and submission of Financial Statement to the CSAAZ board for Approval (February 2023).

5.0 Outputs (Deliverable)

This assignment is expected to produce a complete Financial Statement in accordance with applicable audit standards procedures. The products are expected to be submitted in both soft and hard copy and submission will be to the Alliance Board Chair.

6.0 Oversight and logistical support

The Auditor(s) will report directly to the National Coordinator of the Alliance. The Alliance Coordinating Unit will provide relevant background documents necessary for the assignment. The Alliance shall be responsible for the coordination of collection of documents, meetings/ and other activities that may facilitate the execution of this activity.

7.0 Requirements for Auditors

The Auditors should have the following requirements:

1. An individual or company that has relevant qualifications and experience of undertaking similar assignments.

2. Expertise in facilitating induction or training sessions related to HR and Finance

3. Demonstrated experience in the design of HRM system and Finance

4. Good knowledge and understanding of the dynamics and requirements of developing internal operating policies and processes

5. Excellent report writing skills

6. Proof of auditing company registration certificate and ZRA Tax Certificate

7. Proof of auditing License

8. Method of Application

Submission Procedure

Interested persons and teams with the right qualification are expected to submit an expression of interest accompanied by detailed proposal and assignment budget with copies to;

Email: jobscsaaz@gmail.com by 17:00 on 10th January 2023.

Note: The successful applicant shall begin the audit on 15th January 2023.