President of NIK Marian Banaś visited Bratislava and concluded a cooperation agreement with the Head of the Slovak Supreme Audit Office, Karol Mitrík. Both offices have been conducting joint international audits for many years. Over 40 such projects have been carried out to date - the most recent ones concern cross-border movement of hazardous waste and protection against infectious diseases. During the meeting, Presidents of the Polish and Slovak SAIs also discussed the peer review of the Slovak SAI and challenges faced by the Supreme Audit Institutions of the Visegrad Group. The visit was organised to further strengthen the cooperation that contributes to institutional development of both SAIs.
At the beginning of the meeting, Marian Banaś and Karol Mitrík laid flowers at the memorial commemorating dramatic events of the so called Candle Demonstration. On Good Friday 1988, representatives of catholic communities organised a peaceful demonstration in the centre of Bratislava - to defend freedom and tolerance. Several thousand people, who attended the event, carried lit candles. The manifestation was suppressed by the police. The Candle Demonstration was one of the biggest civil protests against communist authorities in Czechoslovakia - it was deemed a herald of the Velvet Revolution.
President of NIK Marian Banaś and President of the Slovak SAI Karol Mitrík laid flowers at the Candle Demonstration Memorial.
The main objective of the visit was to renew the cooperation agreement between NIK and the Slovak SAI - its long-term partner. The first agreement of this type was signed in 1998 and renewed in 2014. The recent agreement enables further, strengthened cooperation, which brings many benefits that facilitate the development of the state audit and capacity building of both SAIs.
President Marian Banaś and President Karol Mitrík signed a cooperation agreement.
President Banaś and President Mitrík also thoroughly discussed the peer review of the Slovak SAI. NIK together with SAI USA, Finland and Hungary conducts the international peer review of the Slovak Supreme Audit Office. The project is aimed to assess internal procedures and regulations applied in given areas. NIK will evaluate the institutional framework of strategic and annual planning and the implementation of annual planning processes. The review is to be completed in March 2021.
Another important topic discussed was the trilateral audit on cross-border movement of hazardous waste, conducted by the Polish, Slovak and Ukrainian SAIs. Each institution prepares a national information on audit results, which will be used to draft the final joint report. Preliminary findings of the Polish and Slovak audits are similar, and point out that: the supervision of waste movement to and from Ukraine is not sufficient; the transport of waste on the Ukrainian border is not precisely, physically controlled; border crossings are not properly equipped with tools to compare the actual quantity and type of transported waste with shipping documents.
The Polish and Slovak SAIs are currently carrying out an audit on the protection against infectious diseases, too. The international audit, conducted in cooperation with the Belarusian, Czech and Hungarian SAIs, will be completed by mid-March 2021. NIK as the first SAI in Europe commenced an audit concerning the preparation of the state bodies to address the epidemiological threat.
At the meeting in Bratislava, President Marian Banaś and President Karol Mitrík discussed challenges faced by the SAIs of the so called V4+2 Group, i.e. the Visegrad Goup, Austria and Slovenia. The Presidents also debated on the possibility of inviting countries of the Three Seas Initiative, which also associates Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and Romania, to join the V4+2 Group. A modern approach to auditing, especially by means of remote work, and long-term strategic planning were discussed as well.
