Today, on June 27, Auditor General of the State Audit Office Lasha Tordia held presentation of the SAO’s 2016 activity report at the session of the Budget and Finance Committee of the Parliament.
In the recent 5 years, the SAO significantly contributed to the improvement of the public finance management, legislative base and development of capacities in the public sector. Over the past few years, the SAO has been established as a modern supreme audit institution that carries out a risk-based audits and issues result-oriented recommendations.
In 2016, the State Audit Office carried out audits of those central and local governments, which, coming from the amount of budgetary funds are characterized by increased risk and high public interest. Sectors like healthcare, education, defense, infrastructure, environmental protection, economics and other areas have been studied. The SAO totally carried out 71 audits (10 performance audit, 35 financial and 26 compliance audits), which amounted to GEL 10.3 billion. The total amount of deficiencies revealed by the audits was 71 million GEL, including:
- Deficiencies in procurement management -- GEL 32 million 8 thousand;
- Budget Resource Management - GEL 33 million 4 thousand;
- Asset management- GEL 5 million.
189 recommendations have been issued to improve these deficiencies. By this time, 47% of recommendations have been implemented. Only 22% of recommendations are focused on reforms and improvement of the system. It is important to emphasize that the benefit of audit activities is not only in giving recommendations, but in their implementation as well. According to the presented statistics, indicator of recommendations’ implementation is not high enough and needs more efforts to be improved.
In 2016, 27 audit reports and relevant materials were sent to the law-enforcement bodies.
2016 was distinguished by several significant successes for the State Audit Office, namely:
• The SAO successfully carried out and has been carrying out all liabilities under the EU Association Agreement Agenda;
• Over the last three years, as a result of successful implementation of liabilities undertaken by the EU Budget Assistance Program, the state budget has reached approximately EURO 5 (4.9) million, including EURO1.9 million in 2016.
