Interview with the Head of the State Supreme Audit Office in Albania

Today, Europe is going through a financial crisis. We are all alarmed by that situation. We feel growing anxiety. Do you, as the Head of the SAI in Albania - the country that survived a massive economic crisis - do you have any message for the EU?

- Thank you for this question. But as the Head of a small SAI in a small country I don’t feel entitled to give messages to the EU. I may only say that during the economic crisis our government tried to stimulate the economy by giving incentives to foreign investors to come to Albania and by lowering the fiscal burden to businesses. It seems that these mechanisms worked for my country.

Does the Albanian SAI cooperate with the media? Are the media interested in the results of your work? In Poland the media are very much interested in the reports of NIK, usually if they are alarming, discovering some abnormalities.

- We cooperate a lot with the media. Their interest in our reports is growing. For example, the number of media reports for the first four months of this year equals the number of reports for the whole year 2011. We are taking efforts to make sure our cooperation with the media is transparent and permanent, now and in the future, and that it addresses all audit areas. We want to be 100% transparent with the media. This January we have invited the media to our annual analysis of work of our audit departments.

Do your auditors have any special rights? Who can be audited by your institution?

- The auditors have full rights to audit any public institution in our country. They control the central government and local government units, as well as public-private joint ventures. We expect that our auditors will detect any traces of corruption and fraud or simply low performance indicators. I think they have full capacity to do that. The auditors of the Albanian SAI are totally independent in developing post-audit reports. As a supreme financial and economic audit institution in the country, we directly represent the interests of the Albanian Parliament.

You have been the President of the SAI in Albania for a relatively short period of time. I bet you took this office with a concept in your mind, maybe even with a dream regarding that institution. What kind of Albanian SAI did you dream of? What institution would you like to leave behind?

- Yes, you’re right, I have a dream about the Albanian SAI. My vision is to turn the old Supreme Audit Office into a modern and professional institution, unconditionally respecting the INTOSAI standards. I hope that one day our SAI will look like the Polish Supreme Audit Office, which is big and modern. Your internal and external communication is outstanding. As SAI we can learn a lot from you. That’s why I’m glad about the cooperation agreement signed with Mr. Jezierski. We want to make the agreement effective as soon as possible. E.g. now we need to train our auditors intensively. We hope to improve our audit methods with the help of NIK and other international partners. We want to start right now because we have a three-year gap in international partnership and in doing projects together. The motto of INTOSAI, Mutual experience benefits all, is very important for us.

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