Coordinated Audit on Social Housing
El objetivo de la auditoría fue verificar si las políticas y obras de vivienda social de cada país participante contemplan todos los aspectos y recomendaciones que la Comisión Económica de las Naciones Unidas para Europa (Unece/ONU) propuso en el documento denominado Guidelines on Social Housing - Principles and Examples (2006), las cuales son consideradas imprescindibles para que una vivienda pueda ser encuadrada en el concepto de vivienda adecuada y, además, si las metas cuantitativas previstas para la construcción de unidades habitacionales fueron definidas y están siendo cumplidas. Para ello, se revisaron las leyes y demás normativas aplicables a los programas habitacionales fiscalizados y se realizaron inspecciones físicas a una muestra de 64 conjuntos/proyectos concluidos, distribuidos entre cada país participante, que juntos totalizan 36.633 viviendas.COORDINATED AUDIT ON ROAD WORKS - EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Report ID: 318
The audit was conducted within the framework of the Public Works Audit Working Group (GTOP) of the Organization of Latin American and Caribbean Supreme Audit Institutions (OLACEFS), through compliance audits, with the participation of the SAIs of Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru and the Dominican Republic.
The objective of the coordinated audit was to evaluate, through compliance reviews, the quality of road construction and maintenance works under the direct administration of government, covering from preliminary studies to the execution of the works.
Due to the participation of several countries in the audit, it was necessary to set crosscutting and common audit criteria for the audited object. The criteria that were evaluated were distributed according to the phase of the project: contracting of companies, design, execution of the works, oversight of the works, and changes in design after project contracting.
The evaluations carried out in the audits were based on guidelines that describe those practices whose observance was considered essential for good quality works. In planning the audit within its territory, each SAI took on the responsibility of identifying the legal and regulatory provisions adopted in their country related to the guidelines.
Source:https://www.olacefs.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/AC-obras-viales-resumen-ejecutivo-final-WEB-ERRATA-English_REVISADO_Setrad.pdf
Practical Advice for Auditors of Foreign Aid Projects in the Pacific: First Co-Operative Financial Audit
Report ID: 242
The regional co-operative audit of funds provided by foreign aid was the first pilot for a co-operative financial audit conducted by the Pacific Association of Supreme Audit Institutions (PASAI) under its co-operative audit program. Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) in six Pacific Island Countries (PICs) conducted individual audits. This report summarises the findings across the six individual audits conducted and identifies some of the common weaknesses in the audit of foreign aid projects. Furthermore this pilot program resulted in multiple observations and lessons learned which will assist SAIs in the conduct of financial audits of foreign aid projects in the future.
It is expected that both SAIs and development partners in the Pacific Region may learn valuable lessons from individual SAI reports as well as from this regional report to improve and enhance the quality of the audits of funds provided by foreign aid.
Six SAIs participated (Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Samoa, Tonga and Tuvalu), with 12 participants attending the planning meeting and 10 participants attending the final reporting meeting.
The conduct of a financial audit does not include any scope for the auditor to comment on the efficiency or progress of the project itself or the effectiveness of the foreign aid received by government. This scope falls under the audit requirements of a performance audit. On this basis, the audit reports provided an audit opinion on compliance with the funding agreement.
The audit findings that resulted from the audits are summarised as follows:
1. non –compliance with the funding agreement in relation to procurement processes and reporting requirements
2. weak controls over the disbursement of payments
3. poor record management systems
4. lack of asset management processes in place (no fixed assets register)
5. budget reports were not sufficiently comprehensive and were sometimes not prepared according to funding agreements (or project operational manuals)
6. untimely budget reporting which limits their usefulness
7. lack of evidence of governance arrangements such as no signing of minutes of steering committees and no sign off by review panelists to engage contractors
The management responses received from the auditees were positive and in support of the audit recommendations raised by the SAIs.
Overall the foreign aid for these projects was generally managed effectively and as a result the findings were not pervasive and the audit opinions issued were therefore unmodified. However, these audit findings are repeated year after year and usually the auditors do not follow up on the implementation of recommendations until the next annual audit. If these audit issues are not addressed by the implementing agency when the auditors raise them, this increases the opportunity in the future of risk of theft, fraud and misappropriation of funds or assets.
Details of the audit scope, including what constitutes a risk-based approach to financial auditing and audit findings can be found in Section 1 and Section 2 of this report.
JOINT REPORT ON THE RESULTS OF INTERNATIONAL COORDINATED AUDIT ON PROTECTION OF THE BUG RIVER CATCHMENT AREA FROM POLLUTION (FOLLOW-UP AUDIT)
Report ID: 270
In 2006, the Supreme Audit Institutions of the Republic of Belarus, Republic of Poland and Ukraine conducted international coordinated audit on protection of the Bug River catchment area from pollution in 2006 (in hydrography of Belarus and Ukraine Bug River is called Western Bug River).
Given the importance and urgency of the issue of purity of the Bug River basin waters for people, living on its territory, as well as the necessity to implement the EU Water Framework Directive requirements, the SAIs of Poland and Ukraine in 2014 initiated an international coordinated audit on Protection of the Bug River Catchment Area from Pollution (follow-up audit), subsequently supported by the SAI of Belarus.
To carry out this audit in 2014 the participants agreed on a Common Position on co-operation for coordinated parallel audit , which defined the purpose, object and general matters of the audit, its scope and limitations, methodology, forms as well as cooperation and coordination procedures.
The purpose of the international coordinated follow-up audit was to assess the implementation of the SAIs’ recommendations, which were provided after previous audit, completed in 2006. Also it was supposed to analyze the activities of the responsible authorities of Belarus, Poland and Ukraine on addressing the issues, raised by the previous audit, namely:
Source: https://rp.gov.ua/IntCooperation/IntAudits/?id=58
Joint Study Main characteristics, findings, messages of the coordinated audit of the Graduates’ Career Tracking Systems
Report ID: 278
In 2015, as one of the subprojects of the Network on Europe 2020 Strategy Audit, the State Audit Office of Hungary (as coordinator), the Bulgarian National Audit Office and the Romanian Court of Accounts decided to carry out a coordinated audit to allow for better use of shared knowledge for competitiveness – revealing the good practices of graduate career tracking systems.
The objective of the audit was to reveal good practices of career tracking systems, with special regard to tracking the careers of graduates employed in another Member State.
The cooperative audit was a performance audit focusing on effectiveness. The Romanian Court of Accounts also focused on efficiency in its country-specific audit. The State Audit Office of Hungary, besides carrying out the audit, performed an analysis as well.
The final product of the cooperative audit was a joint study with four conclusions and messages supported by the experiences and audit findings of all three SAIs; as well as three good practices that the participating SAIs collected over the course of the audits and which they would like to draw to the attention of other countries.
In addition, all three SAIs have summarized the main characteristics and findings of their national audits with special regard to those which may provide useful lessons for other Member States in developing graduate career tracking systems.
Source: https://www.aszhirportal.hu/en/international-relations/international-experience-about-graduates-career-tracking