Finance Minister names reasons for Kazakhstan's dip in Global Competitiveness Index
According to him, even though this year the country managed to improve its positions in terms of budget and public spendings, as well as audit and reporting standards, the detentions of high-profile officials over corruption allegations as well as the lack of coordinated activities facilitated its fall in the Global Competitiveness Index.
Speaking at the Government Hour in the Majilis today, Minister Sultanov noted that in its work on coordinating the activities of the Internal Audit Services, the Finance Ministry provides them necessary methodological and consulting assistance, carries out analysis of reports and controls the quality of the materials they compile.
According to the minister, over the past months of 2017, the Ministry has already carried out quality control of 34 audit reports the results of which showed that the auditors still focus on investigating only certain issues, and that their audits are often superficial, while insufficient documentation does not allow the Ministry to qualify the identified violations and existing problems.
Bakhyt Sultanov also noted that quality control revealed that audits often carried out on matters not included in the audit program or audit task or, on contrary, audit programs are not fully covered, meaning that their objectives are not achieved.
The Minister said that in most cases audit activities of Internal Audit Services are still focused not on preventing violations but on identifying and stating the facts of violations.
It should be noted that in order to improve their work, the Ministry is currently assessing the effectiveness of the Internal Audit Services. Within the framework of the assessment, among other things, it is planned to introduce a questionnaire for the subjects of audits in order to receive their feedback on the auditors' compliance with the ethics and professional norms.