Peer Review of The Court of Accounts of the Republic of Moldova

Background of the Peer Review

In accordance with request of the CoA and the agreement of the EU Delegation to Moldova, the Court of Accounts of the Republic of Moldova (CoA) is having a peer review made with the lead of SIGMA, Turkish Court of Accounts (TCA) and the Latvian State Audit Office as members of the peer review team. The peer review started on August 2020 and is planned to be compeleted by the first quarter of 2021.

Objectives

The objective of the peer review is to assess the current state of play within the CoA in a number of key areas and provide a significant input for the development of the CoA’s new strategic development plan. Specifically, the reviewers will assess the following areas:

• Independence and Legal Framework
• Governance
• Financial Audit - Process and Quality: The TCA will take the responsibility of evalauting and reporting the results at this area. The review will be done by analysing the policy documents of the CoA as against the pre-determined criteria based on the ISSAIs.
• Financial Audit – Reporting and Achievement of results: The TCA will take responsibility of evaluating and reporting the results at this area. The analysis will be done on a chosen sample of audit files.
• Relationships with external stakeholders

In conducting the peer review the team will take into account GUID 5600 (Peer Review Guide) and SAI-PMF.

Expected Results

The peer review study will end up with the peer review report which will present the key findings and potential areas for improvement. Each area will be evalauted separately and the findings will be reported likewise.

Partner SAIs

The peer review will consists of SIGMA, the TCA and the Latvian State Audit Office

What Has Been Done So Far?

The peer review was agreed before the Covid-19 pandemic developed. The pandemic has led to a delay in the implementation of the review, however it has been agreed to move forward with the review remotely to begin with, using video conferencing tools to conduct interviews.

Until the end of September, the TCA has reviewed the policy documents of the CoA in the area of financial audit, i.e. financial audit manual, quality control framework, annual audit program, strategic plan, etc. In addition, several video conferences have been held with SIGMA and the CoA for discussing the findings. As a result of these studies, the findings have been drafted.

In addition, in the second stage of the peer review TCA has focused on the financial audit files of the CoA. A sample of financial audit files have been analysed by the TCA’s auditors and several online meetings have been held with the audit teams of the CoA. The audit files have been analysed to see whether they are compatible with the ISSAIs, the results have been drafted and the draft report has been reviewed with colleagues from SIGMA.

The project will be finalised after receiving Moldovan colleagues’ feedback on the findings and recommendations provided.