State Audit Office of Hungary hosted the XVIII INCOSAI at Budapest from
October 10-16, 2004. The opening ceremony was held in the historic Parliament
Building where apart from delegates, observers and Hungarian Government Official
were present. Dr. Arpad Kovacs President of the State Audit Office welcomed the
delegates to the XVIII INCOSAI and praised the outgoing Chairman, INTOSAI, Mr.
Yun-Churl Jeon, Chairman, Board of Audit and Inspection of Korea for his
contribution since Seoul congress. Dr. Kovacs in his welcome speech delivered a
special welcome to Dr. Josef Moser, Secretary General of INTOSAI who took from
Dr. Franz Fiedler in July 2004. Mr. Jeon, the out going Chairman of INTOSAI also
spoke at the opening ceremony and talked about the bright future of the INTOSAI,
referring to the Strategic Plan that was going to be adopted during the
congress. This congress was attended by a record number of 492 delegates from a
record number of 148 supreme audit institutions. There were also 25 observers
from 15 international organizations and 95 accompanying persons.
The other major highlights of the Congress were:
Unanimous approval of the INTOSAI Strategic Plan 2005-10. The plan is available
at the INTOSAI web site i.e. www.intosai.org.
Adoption of a wide range of professional standards, guidelines, methodologies
and best practices on audit and internal Control Standards, Public Debt,
Privatization Information Technology and Environment.
Creation of the Finance and Administrative Committee of the Governing Board to
achieve the Goal 4 of the Strategic Plan.
Amendment of the Statutes of INTOSAI for implementation of the Strategic Plan
and to expand the membership by including supranational and associate members.
Adoption of the Budapest Accord which mainly includes Strategic Plan and the
Themes of this Congress.
During the congress the two prestigious awards of INTOSAI were also conferred. The "Jorge Kandutsch" Award is given to a Supreme Audit Institution to recognize its outstanding accomplishments and contributions and the "Elmer B. Staats" Award is given to the author for the best article published in the International Journal of Government Auditing during the preceding three years.
The Budapest Congress gave the "Jorg Kandutsch" award to National Audit Office of the United Kingdom. Sir John Bourn, Comptroller and Auditor General of U.K. received this award at the opening ceremony of the congress.
The "Elmer B. Staat" award was conferred on Mr. Jameleddine Khemakhe, Chamber President of the Court of Audit of Tunisia for his article "Integral Auditing" published in the April 2001 issue of the International Journal of Government Auditing.
A weeklong Congress rejuvenating the motto of the INTOSAI "Mutual Experience Benefits All" came to an end on October 16, 2005. This triennial event will come again in 2007 when all the members around the world will gather in Mexico City, Mexico in 2007.
Auditing Standard Committee Internal Control Standards Committee Public Debt Committee Public Debt Committee INTOSAI Standing Committee on IT Audit (ISCITA) Working Group on Privatization Working Group on Environmental Auditing (WGEA) Working Group on Programme Evaluation (WGPE) The INTOSAI Strategic Plan 2005-2010 lays down a revised organizational frame work with four clear
Goals:
The Auditing Standards Committee (ASC) is chaired by SAI-Sweden. The committee presented its "Implementation Guidelines for Performance Auditing".
The committee approved these guidelines. These guidelines are available in all the five languages
of INTOSAI at the INTOSAI website (www.intosai.org) and on the ASC website (www.rigsrevisionen.dk/asc).
The chair of ASC also informed that the work on developing financial audit guidelines in close
cooperation with International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) and International Auditing and
Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) is proceeding on schedule.
The committee presented an updated version of the Guidelines for Internal Control Standards, which was first brought out in 1992. The new version is better than the earlier version and provides several examples in the appendix. The chair of this Committee is SAI-Belgium. During the congress the chair emphasized the outcome of the second conference, which was held in May 2000 in Budapest. In this conference committee issued its recommendations, which are linked to the corporate Governance. In future, the committee will further develop and elaborate the guidelines.
The congress approved the following two documents presented before them by this committee:
Fiscal Exposure: Implications for Debt Management and the Role of SAIs.
Public Debt Management and Fiscal Vulnerability: Potential Roles for SAIs.
These documents are also available on the committee's website (www.intosaipdc.org.mx) in all the
five languages of INTOSAI. The chair of this committee i.e SAI-Mexico informed that the Committee
is currently developing technical documents on performance audit on public debt, a comparative
analysis of public debt regulations, a study on contingent public debt and substantive test
guidance. The next meeting of the committee is in Bulgaria in June 2005 and these documents
will be presented in the meeting.
In the past the committee has imparted training for the capacity building of the staff in
public debt auditing. The committee is presently assessing the possibility of extending the
training programme to INTOSAI regional groups on request.
The primary focus of this Committee has been on assisting the capacity building efforts of its
members not only in auditing IT applications but also in using IT in modernization. In addition
the Committee has tried to facilitate exchange of information to meet the INTOSAI goal of
enrichment through experience sharing. The IT audit courseware developed by the Committee, and the
advanced training modules have attempted to provide a readymade base for training. The IT Audit
Courseware has again been revised and updated The various guidelines issued by the Committee and
the research undertaken by it have attempted to address emerging concerns. Coverage has been given to
the issues like IT infrastructure management, development of IT strategies, CAATs for non financial
audits, comparison of cyber laws etc. The Committee has also provided useful service to the entire
INTOSAI membership in compiling and regularity updating an EDP Directory and mandates of SAIs.
In addition, advanced training modules on IT investment management and cost estimation techniques
for audit from GAO-USA are being converted into advance training module.
The Committee Journal and the committee website both provide extremely useful support to the
realization of the committee's goals of capacity building and information exchange. There has been
a substantial increase in the circulations of the Journal and the visits to the website
(www.intosaiitaudit.org). The project on IT infrastructure
management, which resulted in guidelines for auditing IT service management are also available on
the web site of the committee.
The congress adopted the latest publication of this working group i.e. "Guidelines on Best Practices
for the Audit of Risk in Public/Private Partnerships". In addition the congress also adopted the
future work programme. The working group completed its ten-year and has a member ship of 40 SAIs.
The next meeting of the committee is scheduled in September 2005 in Brazil. The salient feature of
the programme in the forthcoming meeting will be:
Further cooperation with IDI in developing training for SAIs in privatisation, economic regulation
and public/private partnerships by providing training material and subject matter experts.
Redesigning of the website (www.nao.org.uk/intosai/wgap/home.htm)
to enhance content and "look and feel".
Development of a series of case studies on privatization, economic regulations and public/private
partnerships that give practical guidance on key technical issues. This will also have experiences
of the member SAIs.
WGEA presented its work plan for 2005-07, which is based on the survey results conducted in 2003
covering all INTOSAI members. Congress adopted the work plan. The plan includes:
Focusing on biodiversity as the new central theme Preparing a retrospective summary report on a
broad range of environmental topics.
Capturing lessons learned and sharing experiences in conducting & reporting on collaborative
audits.
Encouraging further training and information exchange and Broadening its base by building
relationship with external international organizations.
Apart from the work plan the working group also presented two documents, which were adopted by the
congress. These two documents are:
Environmental Audit and Regulatory Auditing Sustainable Development: The Role of Supreme Audit Institutions.
Two other documents on auditing water issues and auditing waste management have been approved as
working group documents and are available on the WGEA website (www.environmental-auditing.org).
Cour De Comptes (SAI-France) chairs this working group. WGPE presented a draft document_Programme
Evaluation for SAIs: A Primer at the congress. It discusses:
Appointment of Chairs of Committees and Goal Liaisons
Goal 1: Accountability and Professional Standards
Goal 2: Institutional Capacity Building
Goal 3: Knowledge Sharing and Knowledge Services and
Goal 4: Model International Institution.
The objective of Goal 1 is to promote strong, independent, and multidisciplinary SAIs by (1)
encouraging SAIs to lead by example and (2) contributing to the development and adoption of
appropriate and effective professional standards.
The objective of Goal 2 is to build the capabilities and professional capacities of SAIs through
training, technical assistance and other development activities.
Goal 3 consists of a number of working groups which have to work towards achieving the objectives
of this goal. The objective of goal 3 is to encourage SAI co-operation, collaboration & continuous
improvement through knowledge sharing, including providing benchmarks, conducting best practice
studies, performing research on issues of mutual interest and concern.
The objective of Goal 4 is to organize and govern INTOSAI in ways which promote economical,
efficient and effective working practices while maintaining due regard for regional balance and
the different models and approaches of member SAIs.
At the 53 (A) INTOSAI Extra-ordinary Governing Board meeting held in Budapest in March 2005 SAI's
of Denmark and Morocco were elected as the Chair of the Professional Standards Committee and the
Capacity Building Committee respectively. The Goal Liaisons elected at the meeting were -
SAI-Portugal as Goal Liaison 1, SAI-USA as Goal Liaison 2 and SAI-India as Goal Liaison 3.
The Chair of the Finance and Administration Committee and Goal Liaison 4 is SAI- Saudi Arabia.