Fraud and corruption were the hot topics on the first day of a conference for auditors general held yesterday at the Fairmont Hamilton Princess.

Larry Dennis, Bermuda's Auditor General, welcomed more than 40 auditors general from the Caribbean region and about 20 local delegates to the Sixth Congress of the Caribbean Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (CAROSAI).

"I was at the very first Congress in Port-of-Spain Trinidad in 1988," said Mr. Dennis. "Looking around, I don't see many fellow survivors from that era. What I do see, though, is an association of dedicated men and women knitting ever closer together in pursuit of common objectives, co-operating and sharing with increasing frequency our knowledge and experience."

The CAROSAI conference, which runs from August 11 to 15, was set up to promote understanding and co-operation among members institutions through the exchange of audit ideas and experiences, audit techniques, audit programmes, audit manuals, formats and standards for public sector accounts and training in public sector accounts and audit.

Mr. Dennis said in his opening speech: "During the past 15 years, I also see a group of men and woman building, from the basis of a mutual professional background, strong friendships and personal ties. I'm sure, my friends, this is what I shall most remember and cherish from my association with CAROSAI - the friendships that I have made, and the easy camaraderie which we have developed amongst us.

"We are honoured to host you in our country, Bermuda. I wish us all a successful congress, and I hope you all have an enjoyable time while here."

Following Mr. Dennis' opening remarks, yesterday morning the conference mainly dealt with internal CAROSAI matters, but in the afternoon the conference moved on the presentation of a paper on "Contributions of SAIs (Supreme Audit Institutions) in Preventing Corruption - A Challenge for SAIs in the 21st Century."

And tomorrow afternoon a memorandum of understanding will be signed between Sir John Bourn, Comptroller and Auditor General, National Audit Office (NAO) of the United Kingdom, Jocelyn Thompson (from Trinidad & Tobago), Secretary General of the Caribbean Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (CAROSAI) and Magnus Borge (from Oslo, Norway), Director General of the INTOSAI International Development Initiative (IDI). "The memorandum demonstrates the commitment of NAO, CAROSAI and the IDI to work together to help strengthen external public audit in the Caribbean through regional training and the continuance of the work begun under the Long Term Regional Training Programme (LTRTP) initiated in 1996," said a release from the organisation. "In particular, the participants to the memorandum intend to work together through training and other capacity building activities to help CAROSAI members strengthen and enhance the quality of audits, initially financial audit but also value for money or performance audit, resource management within SAIs, human resource management; and relationships with clients and other stakeholders and other aspects of the operations of a modern SAI as may be agreed by the signatories to this memorandum.