Speaker
Description
Depending on the volume and complexity of the activities and risks associated with the management of each public institution, the organization of the internal public audit structure may operate either in the form of a general directorate, directorate, service, office or compartment, and according to the legislation in force, these structures need a minimum of 5 positions in the case of an office, and a minimum of 25 positions in the case of a general directorate.
In this context, given the organizational and financial constraints, most budget owners agreed to set up the public internal audit structure in the form of a compartment. In terms of the organization of local public administration, this form of organization was not specifically provided for until July 2017, but it was later introduced in the content of the republished Law no. 672/2002, in order to effectively support those budget owners who were unable to set up a public internal audit department. Accordingly, the normative act mentions that public internal audit may be organized as a department with a minimum of two full-time internal auditors.
In our opinion, due to the acceptance and indirect promotion of this form of organization, an important functional aspect needs to be taken into consideration: as this specific organizational function is not legally regulated in both central and local public administration, the “public internal audit department” thus established did not allow the existence of management positions with direct implications in the exercise of the public internal audit function and the intrinsic occurrence of problems in the performance of public internal audit missions. As a result, the authority of the head of the public internal audit department is strongly disguised and responsibilities are often formally and informally dissipated. The duties and responsibilities of the persons designated as activity leaders/coordinators can be treated with skepticism, as they are not included in the organizational charts of the institutions. Moreover, there is no legal possibility of remuneration, of granting a management bonus in relation to the duties contained in their job description compared to other internal auditors. This article proposes a quantitative and qualitative study on the existence of internal audit activity in all public institutions by using the empirical research method and the methodology used was the questionnaire and working hypotheses, and the analysis was conducted over a period of 7 years.
