Control and Audit
The Court of Accounts shall conduct the control of the establishment, management and use of state and public sector financial resources, subsequently providing the Parliament and the administrative and territorial units reports on their use and management, in keeping with the principles of legality, regularity, economy, efficiency and effectiveness.
The main specific activities of the Court of Accounts shall be the control and the external public audit. The external public audit shall include the financial audit and the performance audit. These shall be conducted in keeping with the activity program.
The specific control, financial audit and performance audit activities shall be conducted based on the external public audit procedures, laid down in the Regulation on the organization and unfolding of the specific activities of the Court of Accounts, as well as on the follow up of the resulting documents and in the own audit standards, detailed in the audit manuals, as established and approved by the Court of Accounts. The own audit standards of the Court of Accounts shall be established based on the generally accepted international audit standards.
The control, financial audit and performance audit actions shall be launched ex officio and may only be stopped by the Parliament and only where the Court of Accounts’ competences, as provided by law, are exceeded.
The decisions of the Chamber of Deputies or of the Senate requesting the Court of Accounts to conduct certain controls, within its competences, are mandatory. No other public authority or natural or legal person may impose an obligation on the Court in this respect.
The specific actions conducted within the Court of Accounts may be structured as follows:
A. in point of the domain of activity, in keeping with the provisions of art. 22 and 29, paragraph (2) and (3) of the law and with those of item 12 of the Regulation, the actions refer to: a) the establishment and use of the state budget resources, of the state social insurance budget and of the territorial and administrative units budgets, as well as the movement of the funds among these budgets; b) the establishment and use of other public funds under the general consolidated budget; c) the establishment and management of the public debt and the situation of the government guarantees for internal and external credits; d) the use of budget allocations for investments, of the subventions and transfers and of other financial assistance from the state or the administrative and territorial units; e) the establishment, management and use of public funds by the autonomous administrative authorities and by the public institutions incorporated by law, as well as by the autonomous state social insurance bodies; f) the situation, evolution and management of the public and private patrimony of the state and of the administrative and territorial units by public institutions, autonomous administrations, national companies and enterprises, as well as the assignment or lease of publicly owned assets; g) the establishment, use and management of financial resources for environment protection, life and labor conditions quality enhancement; h) the observance, by the authorities with competences in the field of privatization, of the privatization methods and procedures laid down in the law; j) the observance of the legal provisions on the administration and use of financial resources resulting from privatization actions; k) other domains which, by law, fall under the competence of the Court of Accounts.
B. in point of categories of entities under the examination competence of the Court of Accounts, laid down in art. 23 and 24 of the law, the following shall be covered by its control/audit activities: a) the state and the administrative-territorial units, as public law legal persons, with their public services and institutions, autonomous or non autonomous; b) the National Bank of Romania; c) the autonomous administrations; d) the commercial companies where the state, the administrative and territorial units, the public institutions or the autonomous administrations hold, individually or jointly, the entirety or more than a half of the social equity; e) the social insurance or other autonomous bodies that manage assets, valuables or funds, under a mandatory legal regimen, whenever this is laid down in the law or in their articles of association; f) the persons, other than the ones provided under art. 23 of the law (legal persons, irrespective of the ownership form, and natural persons) that: benefit from government guarantees for credits, from subventions or other state financial assistance, the administrative and territorial units, other public institutions; manage, based on an assignment or lease contract, assets belonging to the public or private domain of the state or of the administrative and territorial units; manage and/or use public funds, the examinations of which shall be conducted solely relating to the legality of the management and/or use of these funds.
C. in point of the type of examination actions, the Court of Accounts shall conduct: a) control actions, covering: the public institutions laid down under art. 23 and art. 25 paragraph (1) of the law, during budget implementation and relating to the closed periods, according to case; other entities laid down under art. 23 (other than public institutions), under art. 24 and art. 29 paragraph (2) and (3) of the law; b) financial audit missions, in keeping with the provisions of art. 26 of the law, covering the general consolidated budget implementation accounts, respectively: the general state annual budget implementation account; the state social insurance annual budget implementation account; the special funds annual implementation accounts; the local budgets and that of Bucharest Municipality, the budgets of counties, of Bucharest Municipality sectors, of the municipalities of towns and communes annual implementation accounts; the State Treasury annual budget implementation account; the autonomous public institutions annual budgets implementation accounts; the accounts relating to the implementation of public institutions annual budgets, financed integrally or partially from the state budget, from the state social insurance budget, from the local budgets and from the budgets of the special funds, according to case; the public institutions integrally financed from own revenues annual budgets implementation accounts; the state general annual public debt account; the non-reimbursable external funds annual budget implementation accounts; the accounts of other budgets implementation provided by law; c) performance audit missions, covering the use of state and public sector financial resources, both upon conclusion and during the unfolding of the projects, programs, processes or activities under examination, in keeping with the provisions of art. 28 of the law.
In the instance of the financial audit, the specialized departments of the Court of Accounts shall be competent to cover, as a rule, the public institutions of the central public administration, the managers of which have the capacity as authorizing officers.
At territory level, the chambers of accounts shall conduct financial audit relating to the following categories of entities: the local ones, subordinated to the central public institutions, the managers of which have the capacity as secondary or tertiary authorizing officers; the territorial entities, the managers of which have the capacity as main, secondary or tertiary authorizing officers.
In the instance of control and performance audit actions, the departments shall be competent to examine, as a rule, the central public administration entities, the national companies, the autonomous administrations, the national enterprises and other entities of national interest, as well as other entities provided by law, which: benefit from government guarantees for credits, from subventions or other state financial assistance, the administrative and territorial units, other public institutions; manage, based on an assignment or lease contract, assets belonging to the public or private domain of the state or of the administrative and territorial units; manage and/or use public funds, the examination of which shall cover solely the funds management and/or use legality.
At territory level, the chambers of accounts shall conduct the control and the performance audit of the following categories of entities: the local ones, subordinated to the central public institutions, the managers of which have the capacity as secondary or tertiary authorizing officers; the territorial ones, the managers of which have the capacity as main, secondary or tertiary authorizing officers; the branches or sub-branches, in the territory, of national companies, autonomous administrations, national enterprises and commercial companies, where the state is a majority shareholder; national companies, autonomous administrations, national enterprises and commercial companies in the territory, where state or the administrative and territorial units are majority shareholders.
The national companies, the autonomous administrations or the national enterprises having the head office in Bucharest Municipality shall be examined by the specialized departments and not by Bucharest Municipality Chamber of Accounts; the autonomous administrations and the commercial companies of local interest, where the administrative and territorial units are majority shareholders; other entities provided by law, having the registered offices in the territory of the chambers of accounts and which: benefit from government guarantees for credits, from subventions or other state financial assistance from the state, from the administrative and territorial units, from other public institutions; manage, based on an assignment or lease contract, assets belonging to the public or private domain of the state or of the administrative and territorial units; manage and/or use public funds, the examinations of which shall cover solely these funds management and/or use legality.
The entities whose managers have the capacity as main authorizing officers that have not been included in the financial audit actions on a yearly basis, may be subject to control actions covering specific objectives, mainly in the following instances: information on significant expenditure incurred for investment objectives or other public procurement in high risk domains, emergence of information, including in the media, on legality and regularity infringements, in the period subsequent to the latest financial audit mission; serious legality and regularity infringements recorded in the documents established on previous examinations.