The bill on the Accounting Chamber (No. 10044), registered in the Verkhovna Rada on Thursday, involves expanding the mandate of this body to all public funds, and not just state budget funds, said the co-author of the document, MP Pavlo Frolov.

“The Chamber must audit not only the funds of the state budget, but also the funds of state enterprises, refinancing of the National Bank and all its activities, funds of international financial, humanitarian, technical assistance, that is, the entire public sector,” he said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Thursday.

According to Frolov, consultations still need to be held regarding local budgets to determine how much this corresponds to the Constitution of Ukraine in order to decide on this issue before the second reading of the bill.

“The main essence of the law is the transformation of the Accounting Chamber from a punitive body that ensures the dismissal of officials, ensuring the possibility of bringing them to criminal responsibility, into a body that evaluates processes in the state and ensures the effectiveness of the state as a mechanism and ensures progress,” the deputy said.

In his opinion, this will be facilitated by the transition of the Accounting Chamber to work according to international auditing standards INTOSAI with a clear definition of objects, subjects of the audit and a description of its process.

Another important element of the bill is ensuring the independence of the Accounting Chamber, both through an open transparent competition for the selection of its future members and the entire apparatus, their legal immunity, and through financial independence, so that its budget is agreed upon in the budget committee, and not in the Ministry of Finance.

“We are introducing the institution of state auditors, who will not be civil servants, in order to ensure the independence of this institution from influence on civil servants by the executive branch,” added the author of the bill.

Acting head of the Accounting Chamber Andriy Maisner recalled that in 2015 the Verkhovna Rada had already adopted a law on this constitutional body, which at that time was super-progressive and resolved a lot of issues regarding its independence, established the types of audits and for the first time introduced a rule on the application of INTOSAI standards.

According to him, the appearance of the new bill is a positive step and a signal to all stakeholders that it is high time to improve the activities of the Accounting Chamber in terms of introducing best international practices and full implementation of international standards.

At the same time, Maisner said that it was possible to make the difficult decision to switch to the INTOSAI standard from August 1 this year in order to “speak the same language with our partners abroad.”

He clarified that the Accounting Chamber is currently conducting two very important audits of direct budget support for Ukraine from the United States, and it is also planned to check the effectiveness of using support from Germany, for which the Ministry of Reintegration is responsible: providing housing for internally displaced persons and integrating Ukrainian families.

“We are ready for an open professional dialogue and for this work,” he concluded.