NIK as the junior partner, together with BRH, conducts a twinning project for the State Audit Office of Georgia. In accordance with the signed agreement the project ”Institutional Strengthening of the State Audit Office of Georgia” was launched on 1 October 2014 and is planned to be finished in September 2016. NIK independently executes component No. 2 ”Strengthening financial and compliance auditing and reporting”. 11 NIK experts have so far participated in the project. President Kay Scheller thanked Krzysztof Kwiatkowski for excellent work of NIK within this undertaking and stressed that the project would not have been successful without the Polish input.
Both Bundesrechnungshof and NIK are deeply involved in the international cooperation. BRH is the auditor of the OSCE, Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, EUMETSAT and United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO). This year the BRH 40-member audit team will commence an audit in the headquarters of the United Nations in New York, the logistic centre of the UN in Uganda and will examine the finances of the peace missions (in a close cooperation with SAI India and SAI Tanzania within the UN Board of Auditors). NIK audits the Council of Europe and CERN, and its experts participate in teams auditing the European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) and ATHENA mechanism.
Supporting the development of the state audit in Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine is equally important for NIK and BRH. The heads of both offices confirmed that they are willing to be jointly involved in this initiative due to the confidence entrusted by the SAIs of these countries in the experienced partners. Furthermore, NIK President invited the President of BRH to provide further aid for the Accounting Chamber of Ukraine, by delegating experts to the missions concerning knowledge and experience exchange.
The Presidents also discussed the issue of parallel audits. Recently NIK and BRH examined jointly with 12 European SAIs the professional activation of the disabled persons by the national authorities. However, there are many other common areas to be audited. Therefore, it was decided to appoint a team of experts that will meet to discuss the details of bilateral parallel audits i.a. in the scope of VAT tax frauds. The issues to be audited constitute a cross-border problem and require cooperation and joint forces of SAIs in the neighbouring countries. The cooperation of NIK and BRH greatly contributes to the friendly bilateral relations and is to improve the efficient functioning of our states.
The next meeting of experts is planned for October 2016 and the course of works will be monitored by the Presidents on an on-going basis. The results of audits will be presented next year.
