Representatives of the Court of Accounts of the Republic of Moldova (CoARM) and the Ministry of Finance, members of the Working Group 32 "Financial Control" regarding EU accession negotiations, met in a working meeting to establish common action plans for the development of the public finance control system.
During the meeting organized on July 14, the participants emphasized the need to clarify the competences related to the ex-post control over the means of the national public budget, for the harmonized complementation of the external audit, internal audit and financial inspection attributions. An important topic of discussion, in this context, was the audit of local public authorities (LPA).
Ecaterina Paknehad, Head of the Apparatus and Violeta Balan, Head of Section within the CoARM shared the best practices of the supreme audit institutions within the EU regarding the auditing of local public authorities, based on analyzes carried out by experts in the field of external public audit.
In this context, the internal procedures of the CoARM, based on the international profile standards, regarding the selection of entities within the LPA for inclusion in the annual audit program of the CoARM, were reported, arising from the available human resources, based on risk criteria such as the periodicity of entity audits, the managed budget, transfers from the central budget, sensitive topics for society. On this subject, the CoARM’s representatives informed that the Court of Accounts will assess the need for human and financial resources for a wider coverage of LPA within the annual audits, with an emphasis on the periodicity of the audit and the identified risk factors.
Vladimir Arachelov, State Secretary of the Ministry of Finance, emphasized the importance of combining efforts to ensure effective control over the transparent and correct management and use of public money and state assets. In this context, the development of an integrated control system of public finances, based on managerial responsibility, is required, mentioned the official.
Ecaterina Paknehad welcomed the initiative of the Ministry of Finance to coordinate areas of competence and establish common development targets, in the medium and short term, of the public finance control system. Also, the CoARM’s representatives emphasized the importance of continuing the collaboration between the Court of Accounts and the Ministry of Finance for the development of the public finance control system.
It should be noted that the strengthening of financial control and external public audit are addressed in the context of the set of reform actions related to Chapter 32 of the negotiation for the accession of the Republic of Moldova to the European Union.