Institut alternativa’s research indicates that half of institutions that were audited by the State Audit Institution (SAI) in the last year have not complied with the obligation to submit reports on the implementation of the SAI’s recommendations.
Auditees that did not submit the report on the fulfillment of the recommendations are: Municipality of Bijelo Polje, Agency for the Protection of Personal Data and the Free Access to Information, Social Council, Ministry for Human and Minority Rights, Ministry of Finance and the Property Administration.
These entities have been audited in the previous year were audited and SAI issued an obligation for them to report on what has been done to implement the recommendations and remedy the registered irregularities.
The deadline in which they had to submit their report to the SAI has long passed, for some well over half a year.
It is particularly worrying that among the institutions that have failed to meet this obligation is the Ministry of Finance, which should strive to have an exemplary relation with the SAI and serve as a model for other spending units.
This information does not give us much confidence that the work of the SAI is taken seriously by the auditees. We call upon the competent Parliamentary Committee for Economy, Finance and Budget to address this issue and put pressure on the aforementioned institutions and thus contribute to the impact of SAI’s work.
In the coming period, IA will conduct research in whether and how auditor’s recommendations are implemented by the audit entities. This is a part of a project supported by the Royal Norwegian Embassy, entitled “Together towards accountability – strengthening the impact of the state audit in Montenegro”. It will be implemented in the coming year, and besides analysis of the implementation of SAI’s recommendations, its components are strengthening ties with between the SAI and the Parliament of Montenegro, civil society organizations and internal auditors in the public sector
Marko SOŠIĆ
Policy analyst
