
The auditing process consists of sifting through documents, comparing sources, and requesting external evidence to ''make sure that Council can rely on the numbers that are provided.''
When Alice Peterson speaks of ITER, she sometimes says "they" and she sometimes says "we." Although an ITER outsider by definition, the Chair of the Financial Audit Board (FAB) sees herself and her colleagues as part of the team. "We're here," she says, "to help by bringing our experience to the project."
The FAB Seven: Francois Colling (EU), Tamara Vorobieva (Russia), Katsumi Nakajima (Japan), Alice Peterson (US), Ayyanan Ramaiah (India), Xiaoyun Sun (China), Hyuck Jong Kim (South Korea).
One major concern is the reliability and security of the information system where all financial aspects of the ITER operations are recorded and maintained. "So much is done electronically that it is critical to determine the dependability of the data. We don't want reliability to be questionable ..."