Annual Report and Financial Statements of the National Audit Office – 2019

Auditor General Charles Deguara presented the Annual Report and Financial Statements of the National Audit Office (NAO) for the year ending 31 December 2019 to Speaker of the House of Representatives Anġlu Farrugia.

In the introductory part of the report, the Auditor General provides an overview of the tasks, activities, developments, and achievements by the NAO for 2019. In his foreword address, essentially, he paid tribute to the NAO’s team since ultimately the excellent results obtained once again by this Office would surely not have been possible without the commitment, determination and professional competence of its staff. On his part, Deputy Auditor General Noel Camilleri reflects on the various work streams undertaken by teams of NAO management and employees to ensure the effective implementation of the National Audit Office Strategy: Improving Governance and Performance Across the Public Sector 2019-2023. He also referred to the planned increase in output and internal capacity by the Office.

This year’s report also includes an article on Corporate Governance – the Next Generation of Government Reform by Prof. Edward Warrington from the Department of Public Policy, the University of Malta. In his article, Prof. Warrington recommends the formulation and implementation of a coherent, robust and functioning corporate governance framework applicable to the public sector in an effort to ensure good governance in the entire public administration.

The report also makes reference to a number of international and local activities organised by the NAO, including the European Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions’ (EUROSAI) IT Working Group Meeting, the International Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions’ (INTOSAI) International Development Initiative (IDI) Seminar on the Use of Data Analytics in the Public Sector, and the NAO-European Court of Auditors Seminar on “Supreme Audit Institutions: How Can They Influence Governments to Address Citizens’ Concerns.”  The report further outlines the active participation of NAO officials in a number of international seminars.

The second part of the report provides an overall summary of NAO’s performance and outputs for 2019.  This part also provides an overview of the work undertaken by each of the Sections of the NAO, comprising Financial and Compliance Audits, Performance Audits, Special Audits and Investigations, IT audits as well as the Administration of the Office.

The audited financial statements of the Office are presented in the final part of the report.

This report may be accessed through the NAO website: www.nao.gov.mt, as well as on the NAO Facebook page www.facebook.com/NAOMalta.