Tag: Feature Articles

In 2020, the African Organization of English-speaking Supreme Audit Institutions (AFROSAI-E) embarked on a journey to support the region’s SAIs in their efforts to strengthen gender equality. The two main objectives of this initiative were to help SAIs become gender-responsive organizations, and to…

When the Office of the Auditor General of Canada (OAG Canada) audited the Federal Plan on Gender Equality in 2009, it was one of the first Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) to undertake an audit of its government’s commitment to achieve gender equality. Since then…

Gender equality is necessary for flourishing societies and growing economies, and its positive effect has been proven by research. It is therefore in the interest of all countries to ensure everyone has equal rights and opportunities. Gender equality and women’s empowerment is even a specific United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 5), one that cuts across all sustainable development. Yet, to date, no country in the world has…

Among the many drastic changes wrought by the COVID-19 crisis has been the sudden shift to a virtual work environment. At the start of the pandemic, some audit offices had already made significant strides toward enabling remote work, while others conducted work primarily in-person, whether to build a collaborative work culture, ensure safe handling of sensitive documents, or due to limited information technology infrastructure or other reasons. The pandemic has presented..

Pacific Island Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs), many of which are very small in comparison with SAIs in other regions, face an array of challenges. These range from issues related to serving small populations, like a high risk of perceived conflicts of interest and difficulty recruiting and retaining qualified staff, to grave threats like the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change. Given these challenges, it can be tempting for SAIs in the Pacific Association of SAIs (PASAI) region to…

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, the United Kingdom’s National Audit Office (UK NAO) was able to effectively carry on its work by quickly pivoting to remote auditing and using technology to build relationships within the agency and around the world. Indeed, many auditors continued to conduct audits and publish audit reports without ever meeting their teams or clients in person. Aspects of UK NAO’s operations were not the only things to change. The Supreme Audit Institution’s (SAI) portfolio of work also…

Making informed planning decisions early in the audit process is key to completing audits in a timely manner. Many teams use historical information to determine how long an audit will take. But every audit and every audit organization is different, so it is impossible to…

Over the last five years, agencies in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s public sector have undergone fundamental transformations—including restructuring, implementing governance mechanisms, and activating control requirements—aimed at improving their performance. The General Court of Audit (GCA), the country’s Supreme Audit Institution (SAI), has sought to contribute to these efforts by…

It is commonly held wisdom that every staff member in a Supreme Audit Institution (SAI) is responsible for audit quality, and that SAIs should ensure quality at every stage of the audit process through standard operating procedures. This is certainly true, especially for routine audits. However, in the case of audits that are complex…

In a 1995 case against Israel’s State Comptroller, the Israeli Supreme Court stated in its ruling that the “Comptroller has no discretion as to whether it should commit itself to the task of preparing an opinion as required of it; it is a mandatory obligation,” and directed the Comptroller to render an opinion on the required subjects.
Nearly a quarter of a century later, the Comptroller’s office, the nation’s Supreme Audit Institution…

Since it was established nearly 30 years ago, the State Audit Office of Vietnam (SAV) has become progressively more independent, in accordance with the principles of the 1977 Lima Declaration, the 2007 Mexico Declaration, and more recently, the…

SAIs are called upon to lead by example, as stated in ISSAI 20, which indicates transparency is a powerful force in combating corruption, improving governance and promoting accountability. The SAO of Hungary has employed several mechanisms over the years to enhance transparency and promote…

To better administer public resources and fight corruption, the Office of the Comptroller General of Ecuador—the country’s Supreme Audit Institution (SAI)—is working to develop an anonymous hotline through which employees and members of the public can securely…

Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) play a vital role in oversight by promoting transparency, verifying government account accuracy and reliability, evaluating spending compliance, assessing such spending’s efficiency and effectiveness, and supporting the fight against corruption. This article explores the relationship between transparency and…

Corruption, the abuse of public authority or trust for private benefit—as defined by the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI)—comes in various forms and behaviors. Corruption hinders national development; damages public service performance, reputation and credibility; compromises service delivery; and causes hardship to citizens. SAIs are vital to the fight against corruption by…

ublic participation is generally defined as activities by which people’s concerns, needs, interests and values are incorporated into decisions and actions on public matters and issues. Incorporating direct forms of public participation in oversight work can enhance citizen engagement and inform Supreme Audit Institution (SAI) decision-making, as the Comptroller General of the Republic of Costa Rica (CGR) discovered when considering the transfer of $4 billion…

For SAIs, as representatives of citizens in evaluating and monitoring government expenditures, social responsibility is demonstrated through audit work quality and performance in a manner that satisfies public opinion and contributes to government accountability and transparency (the main components of good governance). In this way, SAIs strengthen public confidence, which helps promote social capital…

Performance audits are often long and complex, and the public a diverse audience who want to know if administrators are making good use of public resources in a broad range of critical areas. These factors make producing readable reports a challenging task. However, by keeping the final product in mind and following guidelines, SAIs can…

The behavioral economics field has developed valuable insights on when (and how) people make systematic errors in decision-making due to cognitive biases and fallacies. These insights can deepen the understanding of various factors affecting decision-making and are particularly important to audit work, which aims to…

Professional skepticism is a key element in high-quality audits, as it ensures auditor judgments are less clouded by personal biases. According to audit standards, professional skepticism involves having a questioning mind and critically assessing audit evidence. However…

Sustainable development—development that meets present needs without compromising the ability to meet future needs—can be divided into three integrated dimensions: economic, environmental and social. These aspects must be balanced if we are to achieve the United Nations (UN) “future we want.” How is such balance achievable and what does it look like conceptually? This article discusses…

At the September 2015 United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Summit, Heads of State, including the Slovak Republic, adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which included 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—global goals establishing objectives across economic, environmental and social dimensions to be achieved by 2030. All 17 SDGs are…