Building Good Governance: Experiences of the SAIs in Central and Eastern Europe

Dr. Árpád KovácsPresident

State Audit Office of Hungary

Factors of culture and tranditions

Social and political factors

Technical and technological factors

Private sectorPublic institutions, Government,

(Public Finances)

Competitiveness

Global competition, world economic

perspectives

International organizations and

institutions, integration criteria

Tasks and responsibilities identified

Figures in line with budgetary estimates

Precise financial statements with the most up-to-date

information

Satisfactory financial controls

Clear definition of responsibility to

account for actions

Accounting for plans and achieved targets

Enforcing sanctions

Independent external audit

ACCOUNTABILITY

Convincing presentation of priorities to be

addressed in practice

Clear explanation and supporting information for

budget figures

TRANSPARENCY

Independent, reliable audit and analysis

Making information open to the public

Publishing final accounts in a format understandable for

all

Motivation for higher quality work through

publishing results

Transitional characteristics in SAI roles

• Addressing issues of a transitional society

• Develop new relations between Parliaments and SAIs

New challenges for SAIs

• Increasing need for the performance audit of the use of budgetary resources, and for quality assurance in the audit process

• Government (or parliamentary) requests for the evaluation of reform measures (programs, projects), and for helping the modernization of financial control systems

Special roles related to EU accession

• Identifying the ‘best audit practice’ through the different forms of cooperation among SAIs

• Audit of pre-accession programs (eg. Phare, ISPA, SAPARD)

Recommendations for the most important criteria in aligning with the EU environment

• Legal framework (points 1, 2, 3, 5)• Adoption of audit standards (point 6)• Developing the organization of SAIs (points 7, 8,

9, 10)• The role of SAIs in evaluating and helping

develop internal control systems (point 11)

Objectives of the Audit Activities Working Group

• Identify the suitable audit fields• Find partners for cooperation among the SAIs of

EU member states• Identify the specific audit field, objectives, timing,

and need for technical assistance• Identify training and development needs on the

basis of experience from cooperation

Status of training related to EU requirements

• 5 SAIs developed a training strategy by the end of 2000

• 2 SAIs are currently developing a training strategy• 5 SAIs do not have a training strategy• 1 SAI is preparing to develop a training strategy• 2 SAIs have an annual training program