Goritsa Grancharova - Kozhareva at a forum in Belgrade: The future of the Supreme Audit Institutions is in IT audits

The future of the Supreme Audit Institutions is in IT audits, stated Ms Goritsa Grancharova - Kozhareva, Acting President of the Bulgarian National Audit Office at a forum in Belgrade. She was a guest at the ceremony marking 180th anniversary of the State Audit Institution of the Republic of Serbia.

Ms Grancharova – Kozhareva congratulated her colleagues on the occasion of the nearly two century history of the State Audit Institution of the Republic of Serbia and underlined that one of the main objectives of the modern Supreme Audit Institutions is to meet new challenges while continuing to add value to the public sector and citizens.

She identified two of the most important challenges – the digitalization of the public sector and the conduction of IT audits, as well as continuously maintaining high professional level of the auditors.

Ms Grancharova – Kozhareva shared the Bulgarian experience in dealing with these challenges, noting that the Bulgarian National Audit Office has already started a phased introduction of the IT auditing in its activities, and in June this year was held the first external exam for auditors of the Bulgarian National Audit Office as a way to attract new professionally trained staff to the institution.

On the occasion of the anniversary of the State Audit Institution of the Republic of Serbia

Ms Grancharova – Kozhareva presented the President of the SAI Mr. Duško Pejović, with the honorary plaque of the Bulgarian National Audit Office.

The celebration and the conference dedicated to the event were held from 24 to 26 July 2024 at the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia.

The conference was opened by Duško Pejović, Veroljub Arsić, Chairman of the Committee on Finance, State Budget and Control of Public Spending of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia and Aleksandra Tomić, member of the National Assembly.

Participants in the first working session emphasized the great importance of the external audit as a means to improve the public financial management. Particular attention was drawn to the introduction of real-time audits and their importance in improvement of the accountability.

The importance of the timely implementation of the recommendations made by the audit institutions to the audited organisations was marked as an indicator of real improvement of the public sector management.  

During the conference were discussed the benefits of the cooperation between the Supreme Audit Institutions of the Republic of Bulgaria and the Republic of Serbia in the field of improvement of the audit methodology and sharing good practices.

Within the conference Ms Grancharova – Kozhareva met with the Auditor General of Malta, Mr. Charles Deguara, and Mr. Wael Abdel Qader, Director General of the Audit and Monitoring Sector at the Abu Dhabi Accountability Authority.