Prof. Recai Akyel, PhD, Head of the Turkish Court of Accounts (TCA), paid a few days’ visit to Poland. One of the key objectives of the meeting for the TCA Head was to learn from the top management of NIK about changes to the Act on NIK of 2010. The TCA delegation headed by its President, also included 5 Members of the TCA (judges), one of them being also the Head of a Chamber of the Turkish Court of Accounts.
The Turkish are preparing to take over the Presidency of EUROSAI - the European Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions. The Turkish SAI will become its Chair in 2017. Mr. Akyel, PhD underlines that he wants to encourage all the associated institutions to strengthen cooperation and share their knowledge and experience in state auditing.
That was the focus of Mr. Akyel’s visit to Poland. The President of the Turkish SAI was interested in NIK organisational structure, results of NIK audit reports, relations between the Polish SAI and the Parliament as well as challenges related to the accession of Poland to the European Union. He also visited Cracow and learnt how NIK branches operate. In 2010, the Act on the Turkish Court of Accounts came into force. Pursuant to the new law, the TCA is allowed to establish branches. Until then, the TCA had only its headquarters in Ankara and did not have any branches. The meeting with the management of the NIK Branch in Cracow was to answer th question how useful NIK branches are from the perspective of the branch management. President Akyel wanted to know both advantages and disadvantages of this organisational solution. The TCA Head was particularly interested in the way NIK branches coordinate nationwide audits and how they propose the subjects of audits that are conducted all over Poland. One of the issues addressed during the meeting was also the branch’s participation in the international cooperative audit with the Supreme Audit Office of Slovakia. Besides, he was interested in NIK’s experience from the EUROSAI Presidency.
NIK was the Chair of EUROSAI in the period 2008-2011. The Polish SAI was strongly involved in international cooperation at that time. Also today, it is the leader of several international projects. One of the issues raised during the meeting of the Heads of the Polish and the Turkish SAI was aspirations of the Supreme Audit Institutions of Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine to participate in the works of the Contact Committee of the EU SAI Heads. NIK supports Pro-European aspirations of these institutions.
As early as June 2015, Krzysztof Kwiatkowski turned to the Contact Committee and the European Court of Auditors, requesting support for the efforts of Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. Having talked to NIK President, the Head of the Turkish Court of Accounts agreed to further the idea of including the Supreme Audit Institutions of those countries in the Network of SAIs of Candidate and Potential Candidate Countries.
