At one of its upcoming plenary sessions, the Verkhovna Rada plans to consider in the first reading the draft law "On the Accounting Chamber" (No. 10044), registered in the parliament last year, UNN reports.
The draft law provides for the expansion of the mandate of this body to cover all public funds, not just state budget funds.
The main essence of the law is to transform the Accounting Chamber from a punitive body that ensures dismissal of officials and provides the possibility to bring them to criminal liability into a body that evaluates the processes in the state and ensures the effectiveness of the state as a mechanism, and ensures progress
In his opinion, this will be facilitated by the transition of the Accounting Chamber to work in accordance with the international audit standards of INTOSAI (International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions) with a clear definition of objects, subjects of audit and description of the audit process.
The explanatory note to the draft law states that European officials noted the low quality of audit work, lack of unified and proven methodologies and processes, focus on audits of institutions rather than audits, minimal impact of the Accounting Chamber's work, measuring its performance by the number of audits conducted rather than the actual impact of audit recommendations, etc. In addition, the Europeans also noted the need for the Accounting Chamber to report to the Ministry of Finance, which undermines its autonomy, as a negative characteristic.
It is also noted that the performance of the Accounting Chamber, especially in 2021/22, has deteriorated significantly. Thus, despite the almost twofold increase in state budget expenditures in 2022 (by a huge UAH 1 trillion 214 billion), the amount of state budget funds audited by the Accounting Chamber decreased by UAH 241 billion or almost 40%. In the absence of financial audits, the level of control coverage of the state budget funds decreased by 3 times to 13%, and the number of audits conducted decreased by 2.5 times.
The adoption of the draft law is expected to change the situation. Thus, the draft law provides for mechanisms that will allow the Accounting Chamber to actually apply INTOSAI international public audit standards in practice. The explanatory note to the draft law states that one of the most important goals of the legislative reform of the Accounting Chamber is to extend the mandate of its audit activities to all public funds. It also provides the Chamber with the authority to audit not only the state budget funds, but also to audit local budgets, business entities of the state and municipal (communal) sector of the economy, entities in which the state and/or territorial community has a share of capital, audit international financial, humanitarian and technical assistance, audit the activities of the National Bank of Ukraine, including refinancing of commercial banks for tens of billions of euros.
At the same time, the draft law stipulates that on its own initiative, the Accounting Chamber will start conducting state external audits of the receipt and use of public funds of the AR of Crimea and local self-government bodies (except for delegated state budget funds in the form of transfers, subventions, subsidies) only after the relevant amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine are made. Until then, such audits will be possible only upon the decision of the Verkhovna Rada of the AR of Crimea, district, regional, village, town, city councils or village, town, city mayors, respectively.
Another important task of the draft law is to authorize the Accounting Chamber to annually audit the consolidated financial and budgetary statements of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and to provide an audit report on the consolidated statements. After the government prepares the consolidated financial statements and the Accounting Chamber audits them, the initiators of the draft law expect that the President, the Parliament, the government itself, other stakeholders and the public will receive from the relevant audit report true and complete information about all assets and liabilities of the state, financial results, cash flows, public debt, state guarantees, etc.