Public financial control in Ukraine: state, problems, prospects

Abstract

The authors assess the current state of public financial control in Ukraine, identifies its main problematic aspects and suggests ways to solve them. There is a direct interdependence between increasing the level of corruption and weakening the effectiveness of public financial control. Forms and types of public financial control are considered depending on controlling subjects. The authors identify forms of public sector audit according to the ISSAI standards which include financial audit, performance audit and compliance audit. The paper touches upon the necessity of legislative introduction of audit of conformity with the corresponding definition of the purpose, tasks, subjects, objects, methods and procedures. It is proposed to implement the Standard for Auditing the Compliance of Public Resources, which will define general provisions, principles and criteria of compliance audit, as well as the procedure for planning, directions, methods and control points in its implementation, generalization and implementation of results. The main generalized indicators of activity of the Accounting Chamber in the period between 2009 and 2019 are presented and the basic trends in the development of the public financial control are covered. It characterizes the number of inspected objects, prepared reports, the volume of detected violations, the number of relevant response documents and the amount of estimated funding. The structure of identified violations in the main areas includes violations of the budget legislation, inefficient management of funds and violations of the administration of the revenue side of the state budget. The basic criteria for carrying out performance audit are defined and their analytical assessment is provided. The main directions of improvement of the public financial control with the use of key characteristics of the concept of good governance are offered, the fundamentals of which include the rule of law, equality, inclusiveness, efficiency, transparency and accountability. It is recommended to introduce and use a unified report on budget offenses, which will facilitate communication between regulatory authorities and allow for receiving, processing and storeing large amounts of information on the results of auditing.