Efficiency of measures/activities determined by strategic documents/programs for tourism development

Report ID: 249

The Republic of Croatia, Republic of Macedonia and Hungary are countries where tourism is a major economic sector and they all have adopted strategic documents related to further tourism development.

In 2015, the three SAIs signed agreements on mutual cooperation in the field of tourism, in order to assess whether the objectives related to the development of tourism are achieved. The subject of the agreements was to perform coordinated audit on the efficiency of measures / activities determined by strategic documents / programs for tourism development.

The objective of the coordinated audit was to provide exchange of knowledge, experience and good practice, as well as conclusions and recommendations for promoting tourism development.

The participating SAIs developed a framework of audit areas to be addressed in their national audits. Five audit areas and corresponding audit questions were identified: Legal, strategic and institutional framework for tourism development, Implementation of strategic measures and other activities defined in strategic documents / programs for development of tourism, Monitoring and reporting on the achievement of strategic objectives and the measure impact, Implementation of the Agreement between the Government of the Republic of Macedonia and the Government of the Republic Croatia on cooperation in the field of tourism and Implementation of the Agreement of the Government of Hungary and the Government of the Republic Croatia on cooperation in the field of tourism. 

AFROSAI-E and IDI Cooperative Audit on Extractive Industries

Report ID: 253

Under the framework of the IDI/AFROSAI-E Cooperative Audit Project on Extractive Industries,  a series of parallel performance audits on the topic of National Content in the oil and gas sector took place between 2014 and 2015 with the participation of the SAIs of Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.

The original purpose of the project was to help SAIs identify risk areas in the Extractive Industries area and help them formulate an audit approach that they could execute. The ultimate goal was that each SAI should complete an audit on a topic related to public sector management of the extractive industries sector. 

The SAIs  conducted a performance audit to examine, among others, the benefits in terms of increased local employment and use of local suppliers that result from the oil and gas industry. The SAIs drew a distinction between local and national, because in some countries the governments were concerned with benefit accruing to nationals, whereas others had specific aims of seeing benefits accruing to local communities affected by the oil and gas industry. 

The report outlines the methods applied by the project, the results achieved and the experiences for future projects of this type.

Report on the Coordinated Audit carried out by NKÚ and BRH on VAT under the mini one-stop shop scheme

Report ID: 283

For many years already, the Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) of the Czech Republic  and the Federal Republic of Germany have successfully cooperated in the field of VAT and have also carried out two coordinated audits.

The two SAIs decided to address the topic of e-commerce and VAT for the first time,
 taking up current economic developments and carried out a cooperative audit.

The audit subject was the taxation of digital services supplied by EU companies to private
consumers in the European Union. The audit covered the period from 1 January 2015 to 30 June 2017.

The audit objective was to study
• how the tax authorities of the two countries have complied with their EU obligation to
implement MOSS;
• emerging difficulties in implementation; and
• the extent to which the MOSS system is suitable for ensuring VAT revenue collection.
Both SAIs summarised their findings in national reports and jointly drafted the jpint report on that basis.

SOURCE: https://www.nku.cz/assets/publications-documents/other-publications/joint-report-vat-under-moss-scheme-2019-en.pdf

Report on the Coordinated Audit Tax and subsidy support for climate and energy policy in the Czech and Slovak Republics

Report ID: 296

On the basis of a Cooperation Agreement between the Supreme Audit Office of the Slovak Republic and the Supreme Audit Office of the Czech Republic, both SAIs carried out a coordinated audit on tax and subsidy support for climate and energy policy in their respective countries.

The aim of the audits was to verify whether the support in the Czech and Slovak Republic is set up to contribute effectively to the fulfilment of objectives in selected areas of climate-energy policy while maintaining the long-term sustainability of public revenues. Selected areas were the transport sector and photovoltaic support.

 The theme of coordinated audits has been selected on the basis of the fact that both Member States, based on common European legislation, apply different support systems at national level in selected areas of climate and energy policy, aiming to meet the basic climate and energy objectives of the European Union  by 2020.

The EU has set ambitious climate-energy policy objectives, the successful enforcement of which includes a set of measures, including various financial instruments. Each EU Member State can choose its own procedures and tools to achieve the objectives. This gives space for comparing the effectiveness and efficiency of the instruments chosen between the individual countries. Based on the achieved indicator values, the Supreme Audit Institutions compared the quality parameters of the support and evaluated their impacts on the achievement of the EU and national targets. The coordinated audit of the SAO CR and the SAO SR again proves that both institutions attach great importance to international comparisons.

For comparison purposes, financial values and indicators were compared in euros. Amounts in Czech crowns were converted into euros at the exchange rate of the CNB as at 17 September 2019, i.e., according to the CNB € 1 = CZK 25.88.

Source: https://www.nku.gov.sk/documents/10272/1542112/2020+-+Tax+and+subsidy+support+for+climate+and+energy+policy+in+the+Czech+and+Slovak+Republics.pdf

Joint Report - Providing safety of tourism and recreation in the mountains

Report ID: 299

In 2013 the Supreme Audit Office of the Republic of Poland (NIK) and the Supreme Audit Office of the Slovak Republic (NKU SR) conducted audits concerning the execution of duties by the entities responsible for the provision of safety conditions in the mountains. The audits were carried out due to an increased probability of accidents on mountain areas and ski slopes, resulting from a growing interest in mountain tourism and skiing on the Polish, as well as on the Slovak side. Therefore, securing safety of persons present in the mountains, including a proper marking of tourist routes, system of information about weather conditions, infrastructure and organising help or rescue of accident victims or persons who are prone to the danger of life or health loss, became of significant importance. Additionally, both SAIs published openly available surveys concerning the subject of safety of tourism and recreation in the mountains on their websites, which enabled to gather the opinions of tourists on the condition of mountain routes. NIK’s audit assessed the way in which safety is provided to persons present in the mountains in touristic and recreational purposes, including the functioning of mountain rescue system and its financing, whereas NKU conducted the audit in order to verify the compliance of the activities of audited entities with the generally applied legal regulations and internal norms, with particular focus on the international cooperation. Both audits resulted in the preparation of two separate reports published by the two SAIs, which were basis for this joint report that contains a comparison of the adopted solutions and joint conclusions and recommendations. Source: