It was the type of newspaper coverage most Supreme Audit Institutions (SAI) would dread. “Unaudited Accounts Cause Issues,” declared a September 2018 Cook Island News headline. The article, which went on to detail how the Cook Islands has a backlog of unaudited public accounts...
It is a great privilege and gives me deep pleasure to seize this opportunity at the end of my 12-year term as Secretary General of INTOSAI to reflect on the past decade’s milestones and to take an outlook on future opportunities and the challenges that lie ahead. When I assumed office as Secretary General of INTOSAI, the organization was shaped by new visions and the spirit of renewal and innovation. My appointment to office coincided with the adoption of INTOSAI’s first Strategic Plan...
The Programs and Reports Committee of the Court of Accounts in Algeria approved the SAI’s second strategic plan covering the years 2015 to 2018 at its meeting held April 1, 2015. The plan takes into account the recommendations of its recent peer review and a partnership with the French Court of Accounts. Based on recommendations from its peer review report, the Court of Accounts expressed its willingness to receive institutional support to strengthen...
Dr. Margit Kraker assumed office as President of the Austrian Court of Audit (ACA) and Secretary General of INTOSAI on July 1, 2016. She was elected by the Austrian Parliament in June 2016 in accordance with the provisions of the Austrian Federal Constitutional Law for a term of office of 12 years. Dr. Kraker has...
The State Audit Bureau of Kuwait (SAB) hosted a workshop on "Performance Audit" April 5-6, 2016, within the framework of the cooperation agreement with the Netherlands Court of Audit. A number of participants from SAB staff and trainers from the Netherlands Court of Audit...
The Journal is committed to this continued transformation, and you may have noticed a bit of a metamorphosis in the overall look and feel of this edition. The goals behind the redesign of the Journal include giving it a more contemporary, yet corporate, look and feel; providing a cleaner and more engaging reading experience; increasing readership accessibility; and adapting the Journal into a more robust tool for knowledge sharing...
The audit profession in the Netherlands has been involved in a series of major incidents in recent years. The good news is that the Dutch audit profession has adopted a raft of measures since we wrote to Parliament in 2014, highlighting the main concerns from a public-sector viewpoint. The question is whether we are fighting the final battle in the war to restore public trust or just the next in a long series of battles...
As journalists, we do our best to ensure that everything is clear, concise and correct. But, there are times when we don’t always completely meet that challenge, particularly taking into account the global nature of our business. In the Spring 2016 issue of the INTOSAI Journal, we published quite a bit of news and some fascinating feature articles. In fact, we received numerous inquiries about some of the reporting in the last edition, specifically submissions from the State Audit Office of the Republic of Latvia...
Financial institutions and markets provide essential services to the U.S. and global economies. However, weaknesses in federal oversight have contributed to the thrift and bank crises in the 1980s and the financial crisis experienced from 2007-2009. For example, the resolution of banks and thrifts during these crises cost federal bank and thrift insurance funds over $165 billion and resulted in unprecedented...
In 2012, heads of the SAIs of China and USA signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). According to the MoU’s objective, "The participants intend to establish, improve, and develop a framework for cooperation in national audit and promote effective interaction between the participants on the basis of equality, reciprocity, and mutual benefit." The MoU has allowed the National Audit Office of the People’s Republic of China (CNAO) and the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) the opportunity to...