The non-governmental organization Institut Alternativa (IA) assessed that solving the issue of financial independence of the State Audit Institution (DRI) is one of the important processes within the framework of public finance reforms.
Amendments to the Law on SAI, which were supposed to solve that issue, were prepared in October 2011, but that act did not reach the plenum because it did not pass the Committee for Constitutional Affairs and Legislation. The European Commission (EC) gave a positive opinion on these changes.
The deadline for its adoption was March 2012, and recently a working group was re-formed to deal with it.
The representative of the Alternative Institute, Marko Šošić, told "Vijesti" that in the reform of public finances, the greatest progress was achieved in the field of state audit, but that there was a delay in regulating the financial independence of the SAI.
"Since October 2011, amendments to the Law on SAI have been in the parliamentary procedure in order to improve its financial independence, while the Senate has been functioning with an incomplete composition for more than four years. The fact that SAI is currently working with less than 50 percent of the systematized workplaces is most worrying. In addition, more and more work is being imposed on her, with changes to the Law on the Financing of Political Parties and parliamentary conclusions, so the question is how to achieve more with half the capacity," Šošić said.
According to the current law, the president of the Senate of the SAI is entitled to a salary in the amount determined for the president of the Constitutional Court, a member of the Senate as a judge of the Constitutional Court, while the Law on Salaries of Civil Servants and State Employees applies to other employees.
That solution, as assessed by the Board, is contrary to Article 100 of the Constitution, which defines that the Government has autonomy in proposing the budget.
According to the recommendations of the EC, the SAI and the Committee for Economy, Budget and Finance were designated as the bearers of activities to amend the Law on SAI, which in July 2011 prepared new solutions that were adopted by the parent committee at the end of October.
The most important novelty that was proposed is that the economy committee will determine the amount of its budget on the proposal of the SAI, on which the Government will give an opinion, while a separate law will regulate the issue of salaries and other incomes of employees in that body.
According to the current law, the president of the Senate of the SAI has the right to a salary in the amount determined for the president of the Constitutional Court, a member of the Senate as a judge of the Constitutional Court, while the Law on Salaries of Civil Servants and State Employees applies to other employees.
The proposals were also that municipalities and state enterprises in which the state has majority ownership must have the consent of the SAI in the process of selecting auditors.
One of the solutions in the amendments to the law was that the member of the Senate (DRI) is elected by the Assembly on the proposal of the Committee for Economy, Budget and Finance instead of the Administrative Committee.
That bill is only one in a series that opened a debate in the Assembly on whether the Government should have a central role in passing some legal solutions that encroach on the autonomy of other state bodies.
Auditors find errors, but few listen
At the Alternative Institute, they believe that the devastating statistics for recommendations from last year's report on the audit of the final budget account show that SAI finds problems and makes recommendations, but few listen.
"The government's action plan for fulfilling the SAI's recommendations is a document that did not take much time to prepare, with a superficial and irresponsible approach to the SAI's findings. In addition, the reports on its fulfillment that the Government publishes do not have excessive value, because they make general judgments, and are based solely on the data submitted by individual budget users without checking the accuracy of these claims", Šošić assessed.
The Ministry of Finance in the last report (for the third quarter) on the implementation of the SAI's recommendations stated that the budget users are quite uninterested in providing information on the implementation of the Action Plan, and that the submitted reports are extremely short and that statements are repeated from quarter to quarter.
"Apart from the budget user report, the Ministry of Finance has no other control mechanism for monitoring the implementation of the Action Plan for the implementation of SAI recommendations. In addition, the deadlines set by the ministry for the submission of information were not respected, so urgent reports were written," the ministry stated in the document.
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