In Focus: Discussing Challenges to Strengthen Supreme Audit Institutions

The national budget is a government’s key document and Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) play a crucial role in strengthening the government’s accountability in the overall budget cycle. SAIs ensure that national budget and all public resources are spent in accordance with law and in line with the government’s set policies and objectives. To fulfill their mission, SAIs are constantly challenged with institutional reforms and explore ways to improve mechanisms for cooperating with parliaments, civil society, the media, the judiciary and government institutions. To respond to some of these challenges the CEF in cooperation with Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and Court of Audit of the Republic of Slovenia recently delivered a workshop on Strengthening Supreme Audit Institutions.

“The course gave an overview on current discussions on the value and benefits of SAIs as well as the conceptual framework for SAIs and their role within accountability arrangements.” explained Rutha Abraha and Anja Gaentzsch, lecturers from the GIZ who shared their experience with supporting reform processes and enhancing the role of SAIs around the globe.

Participants from seven countries participated at the workshop. They examined the role of SAIs vis-a-vis other stakeholders such as parliament, judiciary and civil society. The participating countries also presented their institutional reform process and recommendations for the sequencing of reforms. Jorg Kristijan Petrovič, First Deputy President of the Court of Audit of the Republic of Slovenia, presented the impressive case of the Slovenian reform process since its establishment in the 1990s.

The participants from Albania pointed out how timely the organization of the workshop was for their country’s reform efforts since their “High State Control Law” is undergoing the amendment process that will among other things enhance institutional independence, increase the level of implementation of the recommendations, and strengthen administrative capacity. In participants’ opinion this workshop was well designed and enabled sharing of experiences. As Bosnian participant noted: “Two-way-communication between participants and lecturers and exchange of experiences were the most important features of the workshop that completely fulfilled my expectations.”

To strengthen external and internal control systems we are this year organizing also the following six workshops on auditing: Performance Auditing, Internal Audit: Working Closely with Management to Maximize the Value, Introducing International Standards in Internal Audit, Internal Auditor's Role in Risk Management, Financial Audit, and Environmental Audit.