Covid-19 Crisis and the New Challenges for Supreme Audit Institutions Management

Abstract

No supreme audit institutions have remained unaffected by the global crisis covid-19. Based on previous major crises, such as those caused by Ebola, SARS or even Hurricane Katrina, and the experiences they provide, Supreme Audit Institutions (SAI) can learn important lessons for managing the coronavirus crisis in order to develop contingency plans for how to respond to similar situations in the future. SAI’s are not immune to the effects of the virus and face a number of challenges regarding the limitations imposed by the unavailability of staff or homeworking, but more importantly, the need to adapt to play a proactive role and provide valuable real-time support to governments in the context of the sharp rise in emergency spending while temporarily easing internal controls and the legislative framework. This paper aims to highlight the challenges SAI’s carried out on its mandate in the fight against the new coronavirus.

Keywords

• external audit
• management
• fraud risk
• public procurement
• funds