The implementation of the recommendations of the Court of Auditors intended for public institutions remains at a very low level. Among the causes are the lack of appropriate parliamentary control, insufficient responsibility and involvement of hierarchically superior institutions, low qualifications of personnel and weak authority of the Court of Auditors, experts of the independent think tank “Expert-Grup” said in a roundtable meeting on June 22, IPN reports.
During 2015-2016, the Audit Office submitted 1,446 recommendations to institutions, which were to be implemented by June 1, 2017. Their quality is good and their implementation would help to considerably improve public management and the efficiency of the use of public money, said the experts.
Economist Tatiana Savva said only 36.4% of all the recommendations were implemented. The complexity of the subjects raised by the Court of Auditors led to an increase in the number of recommendations concerning the modification of the legal framework. These represent 20% of all the recommendations. Only 35% of this type of recommendations were carried out and the extension of the deadline for up to 18 months didn’t lead to major changes.
As regards the level of implementing the Court of Auditors’ recommendations by institutions, Tatiana Savva said the central and local public authorities have similar results. Almost 50% of the authorities provide answers of a high quality and on time. At the same time, only 20% of the solutions provided by the authorities enable to bring about real changes for creating a modern public sector.
To increase the recommendations implementation level, the economist recommended improving control, first of all on the part of Parliament. The legislature, through the agency of a commission, should analyze the most important reports of the Audit Office and should approve measures to ensure the implementation of recommendations. The Government should also present an annual report on the measures taken by the central public authorities to implement the Court of Auditors’ recommendations in Parliament, simultaneously with the presentation of a similar report by the Court of Auditors.
