03.07.2014

"We have developed a Manual of Good Practices for Improving Internal Audit in the Public Sector Effectiveness, which is approved by the Minister of Finance and will be circulated and published in the information system on financial management and control and internal audit, part of the MoF website. The Manual can be widely applied in the unification of the approach and the improvement of the effectiveness of internal audit quality external assessments by applying the developed external assessment methodology and good European practices", Svilena Simeonova, Director of the Ministry of Finance Internal Control Directorate at the closing conference of project "Improvement of the adequacy and effectiveness of internal audit in the public sector through external assessments of internal audit quality as part of the programme for assuring the quality of audit activity" financed under Operational Programme Administrative Capacity, co-financed by the European Social Fund. She specified that BGN 168,260 were spent under the project which was considerably less than the project budget of BGN 492,279.

"We have trained 60 internal auditors from different municipalities and the central administration who already apply the good practices in the units they work with", Svilena Simeonova further said. She added that external assessments of the internal audit units of the Ministry of Transport, Information Technology and Communications, the Ministry of Regional Development and Ruse Municipality had been made on a pilot basis. This has considerably improved the quality of feedback in internal audit. The Director of the Internal Control Directorate clarified that external assessments were key part of the quality assurance and improvement program which was an instrument to support internal audit in improving the risk management and control processes.

Svilena Simeonova stressed the possibility to continue to develop the quality of the internal audit in the public sector also after the closing of the project by using the Manual of Good Practices which was open for improvement and amendments document.

"Already in 2012 the OPAC Managing Authority decided to focus its efforts on enhancing the capacity of the control bodies in the country. Thus, on the one hand, the quality of their work will be improved, and on the other the revenue collection will be raised", said the OPAC Head, Mrs Monika Dimitrova-Beecher, and specified the project as a good practice for internal audit. She expressed her hope that such horizontal initiatives would be built upon in the next programming period in order to have sustainable results.