How to communicate with citizens and how to strengthen the SAI’s impact - those were among the topics NIK President Marian Banaś and other NIK representatives discussed with their Kosovo Colleagues. A new twinning project Further strengthening of Kosovo National Audit Office impact, implemented by the NIK and the Kosovo National Audit Office (KNAO) has just started.
The project comes at a special moment for the KNAO, as its start almost coincides with the beginning of the KNAO’s full INTOSAI membership, to officially start on 1 January 2020. NIK was very pleased to support the KNAO’s membership application in the INTOSAI Governing Board, as both SAIs had known each other well and collaborated successfully before.
Photo by Saranda Husaj Baraliu
Among other things both SAIs have implemented an intense twinning light project dedicated to the audit of publicly-owned enterprises. The project’s assumed results have been fully achieved.
NIK was selected to implement the new twinning project in an open bid earlier this year.
At the project’s opening conference, Hillen Francke from the European Union Office in Prishtina stressed the EU partner was very pleased that having completed one successful project, the Polish NIK continues to support their Kosovo counterpart through this new comprehensive project, aiming at the Kosovo SAI’s further strengthening.
One of the components of the new project is dedicated to communication of audit results. It has become a real challenge for SAIs all over the world to find ways how to translate their audit recommendations into significant impact. ‘Whether the state will be able to continuously self-correct and self-improve depends on the effectiveness of our impact. Whether the citizens will respect the state, whether they will feel part of it, whether they will trust it, it also to a large extent depends on our effective impact,’ stressed NIK President Marian Banaś in his speech in Prishtina. He also added that "Every SAI should be a reliable watchdog of the public authorities. And its reports should provide reliable and objective information on that how the public resources owned by the people of Kosovo or Poland are utilised.".
Photo by Saranda Husaj Baraliu
The issue of SAIs’ communication has become very urgent in recent years. On the one hand SAIs need to keep their reports as complete and reliable as possible. On the other hand they have to face the challenge of operating in the conditions of constant information buzz, as the citizens have the right to be effectively reached with true and accessible information on their state’s condition.
Within the project the KNAO also wants to develop its capacity to effectively formulate and follow up on its audit recommendations, as well as to review some of its audit manuals.
The project should be completed in February 2021.
