On 16 April 2024, the deputies of the National Assembly discussed the Annual Report of the Court of Audit for 2023 at the 17th regular session of the Commission for Public Finance Control. The Annual Report was presented by the President of the Court of Audit Jana Ahčin, who was accompanied by the First Deputy President mag. Maja Bilbija.
The President of the Court of Audit first presented the work of the Court of Audit in 2023 that was based on the institution's key principles – independence, objectivity and efficiency. Mrs Ahčin assessed the work of the Court of Audit in the previous year as successful, pointing out the measures which are by the auditees recognised as examples of good practice since by applying them they improve their work and contribute to the efficient use of public funds. Additionally, she emphasised several other activities that help to better operations of the public funds users, namely improve their performance, such as making proposals for amending legislation or proposing systemic solutions in certain fields of public sector.
Furthermore, she expressed satisfaction with legal implementation of financial independence of independent authorities, but also concern about unsupervised delegation of tasks to the institutions, including to the Court of Audit, without any prior coordination. In her opinion, assigning new tasks to the Court of Audit without its prior consent is a harsh interference with its autonomous nature. She then focused on the new task imposed on the public interest advocates by the new Public Procurement Act and expressed doubts about its efficiency in terms of improving transparency of public procurement procedures.
In her presentation the President of the Court of Audit draw attention also to the outcomes of the past audits which covered various fields, among them: State budget, local self-government, healthcare, education, sustainable development, IT systems etc. In addition thereto, Mrs Ahčin explained in detail the types of opinions expressed in the audit reports, whereby municipalities were most commonly given adverse opinion. She placed emphasis also on the current improper arrangement of payments of functionaries and public servants, whereby she pointed out the comparison of salaries of functionaries and employees in different sectors.
During discussion, the President of the Court of Audit answered the deputies' questions about establishing regions, number of municipalities, IT systems from the aspect of security, and about initiatives of the Commission for Public Finance Control addressed to the Court of Audit.
Attachments:
Infographics of key results
Annual Report 2023