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On December 9, the RA NA Standing Committee on Financial-Credit and Budgetary Affairs and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) /the German Federal Enterprise for International Cooperation/ organized a discussion on Audit Instead of Control , where the draft law on Audit Chamber, which is the demand of the reformed RA Constitution, was presented. Let us note that the NA deputy Gagik Melikyan, the representatives of the RA Government, the judicial-legal system, the Control Chamber, international structures and the NGOs attended the discussion.

The Working Group created adjunct to the Standing Committee on Financial-Credit and Budgetary Affairs, the international experts of the GIZ, the representatives of different ministries, Central Bank (CB), Control Chamber (CC) and other structures implemented the works of the elaboration of the legislative initiative.

In her opening word, the Country Director of the GIZ Office Armenia Anne Kempa emphasized and highly assessed the expedient cooperation with the Armenian colleagues, as a result of which a number of programmes were implemented.

Anne Kempa assured that the joint cooperation will be continuous.

The Chair of the NA Standing Committee on Financial-Credit and Budgetary Affairs, the Head of the Working Group Gagik Minasyan has noted that the Audit Chamber is an independent state body, which carries out audit in the sphere of public finances and property towards state budget and community budget means, received loans and credits, legality and efficiency of the state and community property.

Gagik Minasyan highlighted the fact that while working out the draft law the European experience had been taken into consideration. Working meeting-discussions had also been with the specialists of the relevant structures in Estonia and Georgia. Every provision of the draft law had been undergone professional examination with the participation of international different experts.

“The new draft law provides the main demand of the Constitution: the Audit Chamber will become a structure implementing independent auditing,” Gagik Minasyan noted and added that the Member of the Audit Chamber cannot be a representative of any party.

The Deputy Minister of Finance Davit Ananyan has presented the endorsement on the draft law, noting that it creates preconditions for the investment of the consolidated financial report institute.

The Member of the CC Council Seyran Avagyan presented his observations on the draft law, noting that the draft being revised and called into life will give an opportunity to solve the problems facing the system. The international expert of foreign audit, lawyer Lothar Spielhoff in his speech stated that the draft law had been revised in accordance with the internationally accepted standards.

Lothar Spielhoff assured that Audit Chamber to be set up in future will become a fundamentally independent audit structure consonant with the European standards.

The international expert Andreas von Gal touched upon the problems of foreign audit checking and highlighted their specification.

At the end of the discussion, the speakers answered the attendees’ questions, which mainly related to the independent activities, financing, the inner and foreign audit implementation of the Audit Chamber and other problems.