NIK President elected Vice-President of EUROSAI
The Federal Court of Accounts of Brazil is the Chair of the INTOSAI Professional Standards Committee (or PSC) – the chief body of INTOSAI which develops and updates the public sector auditing standards. NIK is a Member of the PSC Steering Committee as the Chair of the Subcommittee on Internal Control Standards. The system of INTOSAI standards and guidelines has been undergoing a reform for a few years now. TCU – Brazil plays the key role there and NIK is actively taking part in this process, while promoting its solutions and developing new projects of standards and guidelines. NIK once organised a meeting of the PSC Steering Committee in Warsaw.
NIK President informed the representatives of TCU – Brazil about difficulties NIK is now facing in executing its audit mandate as an independent auditor of public spending. NIK has been covered with the SIRAM procedure which is part of the INTOSAI Development Initiative (IDI), and which aims to assess the level of threat to NIK’s independence and to define measures to be taken in the future. SIRAM, or the Supreme Audit Institutions Independence Rapid Advocacy Mechanism is a four-stage process, looking into independence threats as well as ensuring advisory and support to SAIs and their heads when their independence is threatened. The SIRAM procedure is also about communication and raising awareness of domestic and external stakeholders and then about their real involvement in the elimination of existing threats. The immunity of a SAI head, access to materials in audited entities and freedom of conduct are the foundation of independence of Supreme Audit Institutions set out in resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly. The resolutions guarantee an independent, objective state audit, free from interference of law-makers.
