International Journal of Government Auditing, July 2001, Vol. 28, No. 3
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International Journal of Government Auditing July 2001 International Journal of Government &.diting July 2001-Vol. 28, No. 3 02001 International Journal of Government Auditing, Inc. The International Journal of GovernmentAuditing is publishedquar- Board of Editors terly (January,April, July, October)in Arabic, English,French, Ger- Franz Fiedler,President, Court of Audit, Austria man, and Spanisheditions on behalf of INTOSAI (International SheilaFraser, Auditor General,Canada Organizationof SupremeAudit Institutions). The Journal, which is MohamedRaouf Najar, Premier President, Court of Accounts,Tunisia the official organof INTOSAI, is dedicatedto the advancementof David M. Walker, ComptrollerGeneral, United States governmentauditing procedures and techniques. Opinions and be- ClodosbaldoRussian Uzcategui, Comptroller General, Venezuela liefs expressedare those of editorsor individual contributorsand do not necessarilyreflect the views or policiesof the Organization. President Linda L. Weeks(U.S.A.) The editorsinvite submissionsof articles,special reports , andnews items,which shouldbe sentto the editorial offices at U.S. General lmtor AccountingOff&, Room7806,441 G Street,NW, Washington,D.C. DonaldR. Drach(U.S:A.) 20548,U.S.A. (Phone:202-512-4707. Facsimile:202-5124021. E- Mail: [email protected]>). AssistantEditor LindaJ. Sellevaag(U.S.A.) Given the Joumalb useas a teachingtool, articlesmost likely to be AssociateEditors acceptedare those which deal with pragmaticaspects of public sector auditing. Theseinclude case studies, ideas on new auditmethodolo- Office of the Auditor General(Canada) giesor detailson audittraining programs. Articles that dealprimarily DeepakAnurag(ASOSAI-India) LuseaneSikalu (SPASAI-Tonga) with theory would not be appropriate. : Michael C.G. Pay&r (CAROSAI-Trinidadand Tobago) EUROSAI GeneralSecretariat (Spain) The Jozhnd is distributedto the headsof all SupremeAudit Institu- tionsthroughout the world who participatein the work of INTOSAI KhemaisHosni (Tunisia) Othersmay subscribefor US$5 per year, Checksand correspon- YadiraEspinoza Moreno (Venezuela) INTOSAI GeneralSecretariat (Austria) dencefor all editionsshould be mailedto theJournal’s administration office, P.O. Box 50009,Washir&on,DC. 20064,U.S.A. ’ U.S. GeneralAccounting Office (U.S.A.) Articlesin theJournal areindexed in’me Accountants’ Index published ProductionlAdmiuistration by theAmerican Institute of CertifiedPublic Accountants and included SebrinaChase (U.S.A.) in ManagementContents. Selected .articles are included in abstracts publishedby Anbar ManagementServices, Wembley, England, and Finances UniversityMicrofilms International,Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A. U.S. GeneralAccounting Office (U.S.A.) Members of the Governing Board of INTOSAI Contents GuillermoRamirez, President, Court of Accounts,Uruguay, Chairman Jong-NamLee, Chairman,Board of Audit andInspection, Korea, First Vice-Chairman Tawfik I. Tawfik, StateMinister andPresident, General Audit Bureau, 1 Editorial SaudiArabia, Second Vice-Chairman Franz Fiedler,President, Court of Audit, Austria,Secretary General 3 News in Brief Arah Armstrong,Director of Audit, Antigua andBarbuda HumbertoSouto, Minister-President, Court of Accounts,Brazil 6 IDI Training Specialists Symposium NjiemounMama, Minister Delegate,Cameroon SheilaFraser, Auditor General,Canada 9 ARABOSAI Congress MohamedGawdat Ahmed El-Malt, President,Central Auditing Organization,Egypt 12 Audit Prof ile: Korea HeddaVon Wedel,President, Court of Audit, Germany V. K. Shunglu,Comptroller and Auditor General,India 15 Reports in Print AbdessadeqEl-Glaoui, President, Court of Accounts,Morocco Bjame Mork Eidem,Auditor General,Norway 16 InsideINTOSAI CarmenHigaonna de Guerra,Contralor General, Peru Alfred0 Josede Sousa,President, Court of Accounts,Portugal Pohiva Tui’i’onetoa,Auditor General,Tonga David M. Walker,Comptroller General, United States Dealing With An Interconnected World By Saskia J. Stuiveling, President, Court of Audit, The Netherlands ithout any doubt, again for 2000/2001. We sent 1,200 e-mails and 1,400 printed Supreme Audit cards. Again, our goal was not attained. Although we had all Institutions (SAG) the means available, somehow we did not succeed in F’ will have to cope with the ‘6ei accomplishing a task that should not have been so difficult. fication” of the globe in thewnear Human mindset. future. Mixedmessagesaboutthe The second example comes from the United Kingdom, where pace of e-development, about the government set challenging targets for the introduction d corn-mereial successanddisaster e-commerce for public services. The goal was to increase at the s-e tiine, ecotisidn in electronic purchasing by 90,percent in 2001. In 1999, however, my own mind as to what are the less than 1 percent of orders for goods and services on “G- important signals and what are CAT’, the government’s catalogue of IT products, were.placed not, and.what to.make of it for my electronically. From a colleague, I understand that this purchasing own SAT--these triggered some was done not by Internet, but by phone. Human mindset. I- re-&&ions that I would like to I, The last example is again a Dutch example. Since 1997, the share with you. They are but l%st ” thoughts as, in this area, all of us Dutch Tax Authority has offered taxpayers the option of filing am like Columbus setting foot in totally new territory. income tax over the Internet. As shown in figure 1, in 1997, about 19percent of all income tax filing was electronic; in 1998, it was The Brick Story and More about 18 percent; andin 1999, about 20percent. Human mindset. Before turning to modern technologies, I would like to give All three examples show us the same lesson as the brick an example of a very old, though stil!l modern, technology: story: Although technological means are available, emotional, manufacturing bricks. Going back to the year 5OOOBC, people intellectual, cultural, or organizational factors actually set.the built their houses from the wood,,clay, and,stones they found in pace. New technology adds a new possibility to exist@ their stirroundings. In the MesopotamiaRiver valley, however, possibilities’but does not necessarily replace them. Moreover, this soon caused a problem because’ not enough wood and the rate of substitution is far slower than one would expect. stones were available. ,Making use of the products of the wet, The pace for embedding JT developments in daily life seems muddy grounds, the people of Mesopotamia used clay, mud, to go along the same lines. Nowadays, everybody talks about and cane to build their houses. From these ingredients they e-commerce, e-government, e-budgeting, cyber money made pieces of clay by hand a&let them dry in the sun. At first, laundering, electronic fund tiansfers, e-taxes, etc. Do they the pieces were big.and irregular, in&&g natural stones; after replace what we have, or do they in this stage merely add a a while, the pieces became more regular in form because these new possibility without, so far, large scale substitution (and dried quicker. About 4000 BC, people started to use wooden hence some commercial disasters)? molds to form the “stones,” or bricks. P was, however, not until Classical tasks merge with e-development under a lot of e- 3200 BC that the bricks we& baked in kilns. terms: they may look modem but may not be as new as they The brick story tells us that although the technology was firetend. One thing, though, is sure: all those “e’‘-terms create a available throughout that period of time, it took 1,800 years to lot of e-confusion. evolve from a natural stone through an imitation stage to area1 new product: bakedbrick. The defining factor: human mindset. Figure 1: Development of Elekronic Income Tax Filing in the Netherlands 100 fl Similar Examples From Modern Times I The first example is a Christmas card story from our audit office.-In 1999; we decidedto go dong withthe times and,in honbr Of ihi: n&w niille&ini, 6& mOd&n and innnova& by replacing most bf our printed Christmas cards sent by post with virtual Christmas cards sent through the Internet. So a virtual card was designed along with a printed card. For Christmas 1999/2OOO;wesent 4OOvirtual and 1,400 printedcards. Clearly, our goal of replacement was not attained. We had a 1997 1998 1999 good excuse, though-we had decided too late to colledf all .paper Odigital the e-mail addresses we needed. So, in good faith, we tried 1 International Journal of Government Auditing-July 2001 ‘. E-development, Globalization and the Impact on under their national laws four types of offenses: participation m Government an organized criminal group, money laundering, corruption, and obstruction of justice. The’following table summarizes the role The Internet is not restricted by national frontiers-it is and potential effect of e-government in globalization. global. Although globalization processes have existed for h i- ^.. 4 centuries, it goes without saying that the developments in IT Table 1: Globalization of E-Government have hastened globalization, the integration of the markets for goods, services, capital, and labor-and the integration of the Role of E-Glovermnent Effect’of E-Government information about those markets. Within this general trend, the impact on government varies with the role of government government as a user Potential strengthening under observation. of government Governments have a double role to play in relation to IT 8. ! .I .developments. First, governments are users of IT. Surfing on ‘,gbvebment &egulat?~ Potential weakening bf