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[from ELDIS] THE
ROLE OF CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATIONS IN AUDITING AND PUBLIC FINANCE
MANAGEMENT Author(s): Ramkumar, V.; Krafchik, W. Produced by:
International Budget Project (2005) This paper argues that greater
collaboration between public sector auditors or Supreme Audit
Institutions (SAIs) and civil society organisations could enhance the
practice of examining government accounts. The authors propose that
greater interaction between SAIs and civil society organisations could
lead to stronger budgetary oversight by the public sector as well as
civil society with a view to strengthening a country's governance
framework and the effectiveness and efficiency of its antipoverty
programmes. To illustrate this, the paper presents a set of case
studies profiling the work of civil society organisations around the
world in complementing the work of SAIs. These case studies include: *
India: the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) uses innovative public
hearing forums to conduct social audits of local government
expenditures in village communities * South Africa: the Public Service
Accountability Monitor (PSAM) works closely with the legislature to
track government agency responses to financial control weaknesses and
instances of financial misconduct and corruption contained in the
Auditor General's reports * The Philippines: a participatory audit was
conducted as a joint undertaking of the national Commission on Audit
(COA) and a non-governmental organisation called the Concerned Citizens
of Abra for Good Government (CCAGG). On the basis of these case
studies, a number or recommendations are made as follows: * civil
society organisations build citizen literacy on public financial
management. To facilitate the creation of a cadre of activist citizens,
SAIs should develop accessible and understandable reports that are
freely available and widely distributed to the public in a timely
manner * civil society organisations have the networks and expertise to
detect potential cases of corruption and to report these to SAIs. To
take advantage of these networks and expertise, SAIs should create
communication channels that civil society organisations can access to
report these cases as potential subjects for formal audits * civil
society organisations can augment limited SAI capacity to undertake
performance and procurement audit * civil society organisations have
pioneered innovative audit methodologies to monitor public
projects/programmes. SAIs should adapt and adopt these methodologies,
where appropriate, to augment their own audit procedures. [adapted from
author] (Posted 22/07/05)
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