Commemoration: 25th anniversary of the National Audit Office

In July 1997, the government and the opposition unanimously approved the new Auditor General and National Audit Office Act, 1997 as well as an amendment to article 108 of the constitution.

Aerial view of the National Audit Office, in Floriana and (inset) Auditor General Charles Deguara.

These extremely important legislative initiatives led to the setting up of the National Audit Office (NAO), a completely autonomous constitutional entity whose independence became entrenched in the constitution itself.

Thus, the NAO succeeded the Department of Audit, originally set up in 1814 by the first British governor, Sir Thomas Maitland who, incidentally, in the same year, also set up the Malta Police Force.

The importance of this transition can hardly be overemphasised.

Until 1997, the Department of Audit, as an ordinary department of the public service, effectively fell under the control of the ministry responsible for finance. As a result of these legislative amendments, the NAO emerged as a fully autonomous oversight institution led by an auditor general and deputy auditor general who are appointed by the president acting in accordance with a resolution of the House of Representatives supported by not less than two-thirds of all the members in the House.

Other provisions in the legislation, such as those related to the staffing and financing of the NAO, enhance the office’s total independence from the executive, a sine qua non condition for any reliable, trustworthy and serious national audit office.

As is fitting, this year, the NAO embarked on various initiatives to commemorate this important historical milestone in its relatively short history.

The planned launching, tomorrow, of a scholarly book entitled State Audit in Times of Transition – Reflections on Change and Continuity, Challenge and Opportunity, from Malta and Beyond is the last and most important of all these initiatives

The book consists of a collection of 11 chapters, written to scholarly standards, documenting and reflecting on leading themes and issues associated with state audit in Malta and beyond during the first two decades of the 21st century and into the future.

The book is edited by Prof. Edward Warrington, Department of Public Policy, University of Malta, who is the co-author of Guardian of the Public Purse: A History of State Audit in Malta, 1814-2014. 

The book offers a variety of perspectives: thematic and chronological, professional and academic, technical and political, local and comparative.

I would like to thank all authors who contributed to this publication, including various senior members of NAO staff, Principal Permanent Secretary Tony Sultana, two former ministers and members pf the European Court of Audit, Leo Brincat and Louis Galea, as well as University of Malta academics Prof. Peter J. Baldacchino, Prof. Josette Caruana and Dr Lauren Ellul.

An article by Einar Gorrissen, director general of the INTOSAI Development Initiative (IDI), gives this publication on public sector auditing an international dimension.

As appropriate, this book is dedicated to all serving and former members of staff of the National Audit Office, including my two predecessors, Joseph Galea and Anthony Mifsud, and its precursor, the Department of Audit, for their efforts to secure accountability and good governance in the management of the public purse.

Charles Deguara – Auditor General, Floriana

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