Public audit as a tool of trust and transparency of authorities
Public audit as a tool of trust and transparency of authorities
Organized by Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation
Time: May 16, 10:00
At the 15th International Economic Forum "Russia - Islamic World: KazanForum 2024" experts discussed the development of culture of accountability, transparency of government agencies, the role of audit in prevention and exposure of corruption, interaction between main agencies of external and internal state financial control, highlighted the achieved consistency in this work and stressed the need for independence of audit agencies.
The speakers at the session were: Farid Mukhametshin, Chairman of the State Council of the Republic of Tatarstan; Svetlana Orlova, Auditor of the Accounts Chamber of the Russian
Federation; Oleg Morozov, Chairman of the State Duma Control Committee; Abdelkader Benmarouf, President of the Court of Accounts of the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria;
Eli Isaev, Deputy Head of the Federal Treasury; Dmitry Zaitsev, Auditor of the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation; Nasir Sadigov, Deputy Chairman of the Accounts Chamber of the Azerbaijan Republic; Galina Bobrysheva, Deputy Director of the Federal Financial Monitoring Service; Alexander Vedyakhin, First Deputy Chairman of the Board of Sberbank; ; Pa Majane Ndow, Deputy Auditor General of the Republic of The Gambia; Yaroslav Nilov, Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Labor, Social Policy and Veterans' Affairs; Vladimir Padalko, Vice-President of the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry; Ilnur Mubarakov, Auditor of the Accounts Chamber of the Republic of Tatarstan; Kamil Nugaev, Deputy Chair of the Committee on Budget, Taxes and Finance of the State Council of the Republic of Tatarstan.
“The key to all our achievements <...> is, of course, peace, harmony, personnel training and use of these personnel under your (Accounts Chamber - editor's note) control. Scheduled and unscheduled inspections carried out by the Accounts Chamber of our republic protect the heads of business entities from serious consequences if something is overlooked. <…> The gross regional product of the republic is 4 trillion 320 billion rubles, the volume of shipped products exceeded 4 trillion 742 million rubles,” Farid Mukhametshin reported.
“Today we already have Accounts Chambers in 89 regions, [including] in four new regions of the Russian Federation. <…> Of course, we want to focus on the critical risks of implementing the tasks for the development of the country that the President set. Speaking about the number and structure of violations that were revealed: <…> over the past year, we found 4,800 violations. However, compared to 2022, the amount [of funds for] revealed violations has increased 2.5 times. <…> This occurs mainly in accounting and calculations. We returned only 26 billion [rubles] to the budget. <…> We will look much deeper. <…> We know what problems occur today in the process of digitalization: what applications are used, where do they go, what do they give, what is their price? Sometimes they are overpriced,” Svetlana Orlova said, praising the efficiency of the work of the Accounts Chamber of Tatarstan.
“The most important achievement in the last 3 years is consistency in work, in the interaction between Parliament and the Accounts Chamber. After numerous discussions, we agreed and adopted the appropriate changes to our regulations <...> and today we receive not just one report from the Accounts Chamber annually, as it was before, <...> but once a quarter. <…> And we understand what tools of parliamentary control need to be used to intervene in this process, where our support is needed,” Oleg Morozov stressed.
“Today, there have been very important changes in the social and economic areas, including those related to the development of digital technologies and the development of information. And our authorities, of course, need to introduce these new technologies,” Abdelkader Benmarouf said.
“Just five years [ago] one would have heard <...> that there was a big burden on authorities <...> and on legal entities when the Accounts Chamber and the internal state financial control agency check the same institution. We solved this problem by syncing control activity plans. <...> We have identified and are defining for ourselves inspections that are of mutual interest, <...> a single report is made. <...> And the serious burden on control objects has been lifted: if in previous years, in general, Rosfinnadzor (Federal Financial and Budgetary Supervisory Service – editor’s note) <...> carried out 16,000 inspections, then last year - less than 5,000 were carried out by the treasury," Eli Isaev said.
In his speech Deputy Chairman of the Accounts Chamber of the Azerbaijan Republic Nasir Sadigov touched upon problems each supreme audit institution (SAI) may encounter when assessing national climate indicators. “As one of these problems, we can point out the fact that Azerbaijan is one of the countries most contaminated with mines in the world, and that large resources are required to restore forests and the ecosystem as a whole in the territories liberated from occupation,” the speaker said.
To date, as part of bilateral cooperation, the Accounts Chamber of the Republic of Azerbaijan has signed memorandums of bilateral cooperation with 16 countries, including the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation, as well as SAIs of such countries as the Republic of Turkey, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Islamic Republic of Iran.
“As an example of joint activities, I would like to note that our cooperation with the Russian SAI is carried out in several areas. Firstly, Accounts Chamber of Russia and the Accounts Chamber of Azerbaijan signed a memorandum of cooperation and updated it over time. On the other hand, we cooperate within the framework of the “Council of Heads of Supreme Financial Control Institutions of the CIS Member States,” as well as within the framework of the regional INTOSAI Working Groups,” Nasir Sadigov said speaking about the joint work of Azerbaijan and Russia.
The 15th International Economic Forum "Russia - Islamic World: KazanForum 2024" is being held on May 14-19 in Kazan. This year's keynote is "Trust and Cooperation." The main goal of the forum is to strengthen trade and economic, scientific and technical, social and cultural ties between Russian regions and the countries of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), as well as to promote the development of the Islamic financial system institutions in Russia.
Time: May 16, 10:00
At the 15th International Economic Forum "Russia - Islamic World: KazanForum 2024" experts discussed the development of culture of accountability, transparency of government agencies, the role of audit in prevention and exposure of corruption, interaction between main agencies of external and internal state financial control, highlighted the achieved consistency in this work and stressed the need for independence of audit agencies.
The speakers at the session were: Farid Mukhametshin, Chairman of the State Council of the Republic of Tatarstan; Svetlana Orlova, Auditor of the Accounts Chamber of the Russian
Federation; Oleg Morozov, Chairman of the State Duma Control Committee; Abdelkader Benmarouf, President of the Court of Accounts of the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria;
Eli Isaev, Deputy Head of the Federal Treasury; Dmitry Zaitsev, Auditor of the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation; Nasir Sadigov, Deputy Chairman of the Accounts Chamber of the Azerbaijan Republic; Galina Bobrysheva, Deputy Director of the Federal Financial Monitoring Service; Alexander Vedyakhin, First Deputy Chairman of the Board of Sberbank; ; Pa Majane Ndow, Deputy Auditor General of the Republic of The Gambia; Yaroslav Nilov, Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Labor, Social Policy and Veterans' Affairs; Vladimir Padalko, Vice-President of the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry; Ilnur Mubarakov, Auditor of the Accounts Chamber of the Republic of Tatarstan; Kamil Nugaev, Deputy Chair of the Committee on Budget, Taxes and Finance of the State Council of the Republic of Tatarstan.
“The key to all our achievements <...> is, of course, peace, harmony, personnel training and use of these personnel under your (Accounts Chamber - editor's note) control. Scheduled and unscheduled inspections carried out by the Accounts Chamber of our republic protect the heads of business entities from serious consequences if something is overlooked. <…> The gross regional product of the republic is 4 trillion 320 billion rubles, the volume of shipped products exceeded 4 trillion 742 million rubles,” Farid Mukhametshin reported.
“Today we already have Accounts Chambers in 89 regions, [including] in four new regions of the Russian Federation. <…> Of course, we want to focus on the critical risks of implementing the tasks for the development of the country that the President set. Speaking about the number and structure of violations that were revealed: <…> over the past year, we found 4,800 violations. However, compared to 2022, the amount [of funds for] revealed violations has increased 2.5 times. <…> This occurs mainly in accounting and calculations. We returned only 26 billion [rubles] to the budget. <…> We will look much deeper. <…> We know what problems occur today in the process of digitalization: what applications are used, where do they go, what do they give, what is their price? Sometimes they are overpriced,” Svetlana Orlova said, praising the efficiency of the work of the Accounts Chamber of Tatarstan.
“The most important achievement in the last 3 years is consistency in work, in the interaction between Parliament and the Accounts Chamber. After numerous discussions, we agreed and adopted the appropriate changes to our regulations <...> and today we receive not just one report from the Accounts Chamber annually, as it was before, <...> but once a quarter. <…> And we understand what tools of parliamentary control need to be used to intervene in this process, where our support is needed,” Oleg Morozov stressed.
“Today, there have been very important changes in the social and economic areas, including those related to the development of digital technologies and the development of information. And our authorities, of course, need to introduce these new technologies,” Abdelkader Benmarouf said.
“Just five years [ago] one would have heard <...> that there was a big burden on authorities <...> and on legal entities when the Accounts Chamber and the internal state financial control agency check the same institution. We solved this problem by syncing control activity plans. <...> We have identified and are defining for ourselves inspections that are of mutual interest, <...> a single report is made. <...> And the serious burden on control objects has been lifted: if in previous years, in general, Rosfinnadzor (Federal Financial and Budgetary Supervisory Service – editor’s note) <...> carried out 16,000 inspections, then last year - less than 5,000 were carried out by the treasury," Eli Isaev said.
In his speech Deputy Chairman of the Accounts Chamber of the Azerbaijan Republic Nasir Sadigov touched upon problems each supreme audit institution (SAI) may encounter when assessing national climate indicators. “As one of these problems, we can point out the fact that Azerbaijan is one of the countries most contaminated with mines in the world, and that large resources are required to restore forests and the ecosystem as a whole in the territories liberated from occupation,” the speaker said.
To date, as part of bilateral cooperation, the Accounts Chamber of the Republic of Azerbaijan has signed memorandums of bilateral cooperation with 16 countries, including the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation, as well as SAIs of such countries as the Republic of Turkey, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Islamic Republic of Iran.
“As an example of joint activities, I would like to note that our cooperation with the Russian SAI is carried out in several areas. Firstly, Accounts Chamber of Russia and the Accounts Chamber of Azerbaijan signed a memorandum of cooperation and updated it over time. On the other hand, we cooperate within the framework of the “Council of Heads of Supreme Financial Control Institutions of the CIS Member States,” as well as within the framework of the regional INTOSAI Working Groups,” Nasir Sadigov said speaking about the joint work of Azerbaijan and Russia.
The 15th International Economic Forum "Russia - Islamic World: KazanForum 2024" is being held on May 14-19 in Kazan. This year's keynote is "Trust and Cooperation." The main goal of the forum is to strengthen trade and economic, scientific and technical, social and cultural ties between Russian regions and the countries of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), as well as to promote the development of the Islamic financial system institutions in Russia.
