from 2017 in accordance with international practice and is being effectively applied to the host country's audit activities. Currently, the State Audit has issued the 4th draft on handling responsibilities based on audit conclusions and recommendations. This is a document that has been drafted and issued since 2019 to enhance the legality of the State Audit legal system, promote sanctions for implementing conclusions and recommendations of the State Audit to help control quality in audit activities more smoothly and effectively. The revised State Audit Law also strengthens the responsibility and role of the State Audit and when the State Audit entity makes inappropriate audit conclusions, causing damage, the audit subject has the right to sue the State Audit, this is a provision in accordance with international practice to enhance democracy, role and legal responsibility for the State Audit.
Fourth, the role of the State Audit has been most clearly demonstrated in recent years, with SAIs assigning important tasks and supporting the host SAIs to successfully implement the set goals. With the achievements of more than 25 years of SAIs, SAIs are most interested in the results of Vietnam's audit activities, pointing out the limitations and weaknesses that need to be overcome in performing the role of the State Audit, thereby creating a driving force for continuous development and breakthroughs for all activities of the State Audit of Vietnam when assigned important tasks. The results of the audit were announced to the public and were highly appreciated by the National Assembly and the Government in all aspects of the achievements. These results are increasingly of public interest, with all levels and sectors paying close attention to the situation on the ground and the violations of those related to management and operation as pointed out in the audit conclusions.
Along with the application of information technology to economic activities and the development of Industry 4.0 adapting to e-Government and e-Government, the State Audit has achieved initial results in the pilot in 2018 and continued to implement from 2019 on the data component, collecting data sets through information portals, electronic technology compatible with the State Audit software system to regularly control the situation of operations, management and management of investment capital, estimates, developments in economic development investment, social security. From those results, the State Audit has established a medium-term and long-term strategic audit plan for economic activities, a continuous and periodic audit plan with the following audit organization methods: Pre-audit, current audit and post-audit.
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3.4.2 Limitations and weaknesses
The continuous development process of the State Audit, besides the achievements, shows us that there are still many weaknesses and limitations in the State Audit, especially in the organization of State Audit to enhance the role of the State Audit. The State Audit needs to identify the following limitations:
3.4.2.1 In performing operational audits, enhancing the role of State Audit
Implement pre-audit and on-site audit methods to ensure the objectives of the KTHĐ associated with the role in supervision, financial management, and public assets for current SAI in Vietnam.
still limited in capacity, human resources, technology, experience and organization. The State Audit has not really focused on the type of continuous audit and audit to be regularly and periodically audited for a project, program, or investment policy from the stage of establishing investment policies, public investment capital plans, organizing construction bidding and putting into operation. With the meaning of continuous audit and audit, it helps to enhance the role of the State Audit in regular and periodic monitoring, control and management throughout the operation process and financial management and investment capital in programs and projects. Implementing the method of controlling periodically by quarter (o+n/4) and by month (o+n/12) for each year (o+n) in the implementation of the audit takes a lot of time, costs a lot of money, and human resources to implement throughout the operation of the program or project, so the State Audit has not been able to implement this method.
The limitation of the State Audit is that it does not have much practical experience in organizing the implementation of pre-audit and on-site audit methods right in the early stages of the project management cycle; in addition, the combination of audit types in project audits is still unclear, there is no standard method, auditors only perform a combination of financial audit and compliance audit smoothly in other audits; currently, the State Audit only participates in discussing the budget with the Ministry of Finance, People's Councils at all levels and gives opinions but they are not highly legal, there are no written sanctions. That has significantly affected the role of the State Audit and limited the authority to control and supervise activities as well as the effectiveness of the State Audit's advisory opinions in all stages of the process of financial management and public assets.
3.4.2.2 In exercising the powers and legal position of the audit apparatus in organizing operational audits
First, authority, legal status and international cooperation
Since its formation and development, the State Audit Office joined the ASOSAI Congress in 1997, with its authority and legal status, it was affirmed for the first time that it was interested in the State Audit Offices of countries in the region. Although the results of active advocacy, after 3 years of operation, the State Audit Office at that time was still young, the audit force was still thin, and the capacity to develop the type of performance audit was not as interested as the SAIs expected. Performance audit at that time did not have methods, processes, and standards that were localized for application, so the audit results were in the direction of pilot integration in budget audits, not bringing high expectations to serve as a foundation for organizing performance audits.
With its enhanced legal status, in 2018, the State Audit Office officially became the host country of the 14th ASOSAI Congress. The Congress emphasized above all the types of operational audits led by the host SAI in the fields of environment, public debt, climate change and other areas with many risks and impacts in the region and the world. Summary of results
The results of the KTHĐ are achieved and periodically reported to member SAIs. However, SAI Vietnam is still limited in terms of specialized technical capacity in areas such as: Biodiversity, climate change, transnational environmental disasters, etc. Regarding the authority to announce the results of the KTHĐ, it shows that SAI Vietnam does not have much information and data to report the overall results of the year during the 2018-2021 congress term. Member SAIs do not have enough information to fully assess the economic performance of the host country's SAI compared to the goals set by the Congress.
Second, improve the quality of operational audit organization.
Currently, the organization of the Youth Union and the Auditing Team have been consolidated and developed comprehensively in terms of capacity and professional qualifications for auditors participating in the Auditing, and the facilities are relatively adequate. However, the professional qualifications are not uniform, a number of auditors are still afraid of difficulties; regarding the organization of Auditing, land audits, and special topics, auditors are reluctant to approach; the standards of operation and public service ethics are not high; regarding the development of professional skills through information technology and foreign language channels, auditors performing the Auditing have not had a high spirit of training, have not really researched and studied to equip themselves with IT and foreign language knowledge to be ready to be a team to participate in domestic and foreign training programs according to the development strategy, training human resources of the industry in the period of 2018-2021 and the following periods. These limitations affect the development of the role of the State Audit Office. The State Audit Office still does not have a strong policy on reviewing and reducing the number of staff who do not meet the standards, qualifications and professional and technical competence.
The work of supervising, directing and controlling the audit team and controlling the quality of audits is not close to reality, sanctions are not strong enough to prevent unwanted risks in audits; auditors implementing audits have not applied audit methods effectively, many important violations have been missed, and the level of audits is uneven, affecting the quality of their work. Auditing personnel for audits is increasingly increasing, standards and quality in public service have been improved, but compared to actual needs, it has not been met in a timely manner. Young auditors participating in audits lack experience and need to be trained step by step; the spirit of coordination and information exchange, and audit expertise between audit departments is not high. The coordination in performing audits with audit subjects has not been tight, and audited subjects do not fully understand the role of the State Audit, so they are limited in providing records and documents to the audit team. The system of forms and documents for audits sent by the State Audit Office to the units requesting information and data still does not meet the requirements; the level of financial information technology is weak, the capacity of financial and management staff is uneven, and there is a lack of spirit in the cooperative relationship in organizing audits.
3.4.2.3 Performing the role of the State Audit in the relationship with financial management and public assets through performance audits
First, the role of monitoring and controlling the activities of the State Audit Office.
Currently, the role of the State Audit is an independent institution but not strong enough compared to the requirements. The supervision and control of financial management and public assets at all levels of State management are assessed as not strong because the public financial supervision system in our country has not developed strongly. The control and supervision of activities at the input stage and the operation of the management cycle of programs, projects, and development investment policies are still neglected such as: Controlling by quarter in the year (o+n/4) and by month of the year (o+n/12) of the State Audit strategic plan according to the pre-audit and current audit methods to regularly and continuously check and monitor developments on the ground. The levels, sectors as well as the subjects implementing the audits have not paid much attention to the management control period. The subjects implementing the audits follow the guidelines of the audit implementation plan approved by the State Auditor General and have not been able to make a breakthrough or change the organization method to replicate strategic audits.
Second, Management Consulting helps the State perfect the legal system.
Although the legal system of the State Audit Office is increasingly complete, synchronous and transparent, the sanctions are not strong enough, some units that are audited still underestimate the role of the State Audit Office when implementing the conclusions and recommendations of the State Audit Office. The legality of some regulations and legal documents of the State Audit Office is still general, the guiding regulations must be regularly revised and updated compared to the legal system of the State and current laws; The conclusions and recommendations of the State Audit Office are based on the law but still have many shortcomings, the audited subjects misunderstand the policy, leading to serious violations in management and operation, causing damage and conflicts and disputes between State executive agencies, typically in the fields of planning, land compensation, investment in construction of commercial housing, apartment buildings, tourist areas, etc. In the process of input management and the operational phase of the project implementation process, the policy has many shortcomings in the management regulations, provisions, and sanctions of the State law as well as current laws. Those shortcomings greatly affect the operation and management work at all levels of State government and directly affect the role and responsibilities of the State Audit Office, so the State Audit Office should promptly study and propose amendments to the shortcomings of the CSPL through consultation on inappropriate policies that occurred in the pre-operational phase.
3.4.2.4 Auditing the performance of key programs and projects
In today's industry with limitations of compatibility between technologies
Information and auditing operations are issues of concern. With the information technology development project, the development orientation of the State Audit is to audit in an information technology environment that requires the use of large database software systems, but the management and software creation department of the project is still limited in terms of skills, auditing, accounting, and finance operations and vice versa; auditors participating in the audit lack proficiency in technology and computerization operations, making it difficult to implement; however, the multidimensional data and information systems are not synchronized and are not yet highly effective. Regarding the program, the e-Government and e-Government information technology project is gradually being completed to be compatible with the reform of modern public administration, but is currently only effective and compatible in a number of key areas such as: Banking, tax, monetary management, securities, etc. and has not been spread synchronously to many other areas. That difficulty has affected the Audit Committee in organizing the audit of key programs and projects in the information technology and IT environment that the SAIs oriented at the 14th ASOSAI Assembly.
The State Audit Office has been approached with information technology projects in the Economic Council, and 2014 was the year of independent economic council implementation. Although the results have brought many impressions, the economic councils have only just begun to be organized on the basis of thematic audits for key programs and projects; many thematic audits have high-risk areas, causing much public outrage, but have not been separated into independent economic councils; Many audits of key programs and projects have had encouraging results but have not been continuously, periodically and regularly audited by the State Audit Office, such as: Audits of social housing, licensing and state management programs on health, investment projects in mineral resource exploitation, leading to risks and problems that are difficult to control, manage and regularly correct, and promptly rectify, typically during the Covid-19 pandemic, the situation of bidding and purchasing medical equipment with inflated prices, circular trading at the input and output stages, causing damage to capital, public finance, and increasing medical examination and treatment costs for people.
3.4.2.5 Public relations with the State Audit through the State Audit Office
Currently, the impact on the organization of the KTHĐ is that the decentralization and delegation of authority in management at all levels of government are not clear. Ministries, branches, People's Councils, and Provincial People's Committees have issued sanctions that are not strong enough on responsibilities, authority to explain, and adjust budget settlement reports according to recommendations in the KTHĐ report, leading to relevant levels and units often delegating the responsibility to explain the content of the KTHĐ to other units. Coordination with other public agencies is still limited, and some functions and tasks are overlapping. The interrogation of contents related to the KTHĐ organization to collect opinions on issues that cause public concern has not been paid attention to, only mass information is collected on basic media channels.
3.4.3 Causes of limitations and weaknesses
The above limitations and weaknesses arise from inherent causes, both objective and subjective. Some of the main causes are analyzed below:
Firstly, on implementing the State Audit to enhance the role of State Audit
The objective reason why the State Audit has not yet implemented well the pre-audit and on-site audit methods in the organization of the audit is due to the old-fashioned thinking of the previous compliance audit and financial audit types which were considered the guideline for the effectiveness of the audit; the method of implementing the audit has not been oriented with the essential conditions of human resources, financial resources and facilities which have been recently consolidated but not yet synchronized; the State's salary policy has not been reformed in a timely manner in the current period; the income of auditors is not commensurate with the audit productivity compared to countries in the ASOSAI region, thus affecting the operating standards; the income of cadres, auditors and workers has not ensured an average and stable standard of living; the salary increase roadmap in the public sector has not been implemented in advance, so auditors participating in the audit also face many difficulties when assigned with great responsibilities. In some audit fields, when there are achievements, rewards and promotions, they are the driving force to increase audit results; In case the salary and income of staff and auditors are increased, it will change their professional thinking and creativity; from the above reasons, conditions, finance, and facilities do not fully meet the requirements of auditing activities, it will also affect the operating standards and role of the State Audit.
The subjective reasons are that the reform of the public administration is not modern and not synchronous at all levels of state management; the level of information technology and foreign languages of the staff is not high; the State's legal policies and current regulations change frequently in life; the implementation of the method of continuous control by quarter (o+n/4) and by month (o+n/12) of the year faces many difficulties due to the outdated thinking of organizing post-audit of financial audit and compliance audit, while the entities implementing the public administration have not yet innovated or made breakthroughs; the number of audits performed is not high because in 2018, the State Audit implemented a policy of reducing the number of focal points to improve audit quality. The reason leading to the difficulty in changing professional thinking is inevitable and must go through a process of forming a necessary and sufficient condition, a good public administrative reform environment, improved thinking and operating standards.
Second , on the authority and legal position of the audit apparatus with regard to the organization of operational audits and international cooperation.
The objective reason is that the position of the State Audit Office has been constitutionally established to operate independently but still depends on the political institutions, policies, and legal framework of the State within the framework of the Constitution, which must be regularly amended over time. By 2018, the State Audit Office was the chairman of the ASOSAI Congress, the experience, capacity, human resources, and material resources of the State Audit Office are being supported for development by SAIs, the information technology environment is still limited, the audit meetings have not yet been organized in the information technology environment, leading to an insignificant increase in the number of audit meetings. The public financial management system in our country has not yet developed in a modern and synchronous manner, the public administrative reform is being modernized but has not yet adapted to industry.
4.0 to synchronize methods and practices.
The subjective reason is that the audit teams and groups still adhere to the standard audit plans to implement the audit without any breakthrough as a foundation for changing the method of organizing the audit for the next audit plan; the audit subjects often wait for the conclusions of the implementation of audit recommendations to be relieved of responsibility. The annual training and professional development for auditors only focuses on compliance auditing skills and financial auditing at all levels. For the type of audit that is still neglected, there has not been much training programs at each level to replicate in the whole industry in the direction of international experience, including: Training on operational standards for each auditor participating in audits, skills in establishing audit criteria, audit implementation methods, audit plans, continuous audit reports, control divergence, monitoring activities, field audits, working with audit subjects in an audit, quality control of audits and inspection and supervision of the activities of the Audit Team Leaders, etc. The above skills have not been given regular attention, auditors are hesitant to approach the audit model.
Third, implementing the role of the State Audit in financial management and public assets through auditing.
Objective reasons for the auditing environment in Vietnam for the tasks that SAIs are oriented towards such as: Biodiversity, climate change, transnational environmental disasters, information technology, public debt, etc. Management of these areas still has many violations, potential risks, and the association with the management responsibilities of all levels and sectors is considered sensitive, with many factors hindering the process of auditing because it is related to the fight against corruption and exposing violations. The institutional role of the State Audit is still unclear, not strong enough in terms of public power in independent monitoring and control activities at all levels of State management and in the field. In the management consulting role of the State Audit, the legality of law enforcement is still being issued very cautiously in issuing documents to sanction violations against organizations and individuals related to auditing activities. Since the establishment of the State Audit Office, the State has had more than 20 laws amended and replaced, including the State Audit Law, although the legal system is increasingly perfect.
transparent and effective but with certain impacts, boldly amending the shortcomings of the law is very cautious. The main reason is that global trade wars often occur, affecting the Vietnamese economy at each stage, which is inevitable to change investment and development policies. Massive investment opportunities from developed countries in Vietnam since joining the WTO, along with the strong development of domestic private economic groups, ineffective state economic groups, dissolution, and suppression; the previous anti-corruption law was not strong enough, other laws still have many limitations and shortcomings, so many violations occurred in financial management, public assets, and high-ranking state management officials could not avoid violations when deciding on an investment policy, decision, or disbursement of public investment capital, falling into the public debt trap. Therefore, public investment capital in recent years has been disbursed at a low level, with low efficiency, and capital has been recovered and returned according to the World Bank's regulations.
The subjective reason is that the role of the State Audit has not been able to control, independently audit and boldly make conclusions on corruption prevention. On the other hand, information and data in these areas for auditing and verification are dishonest, the audited subjects correct data or legalize, reducing the effectiveness of audit conclusions and consultations. Agencies at all levels, ministries, branches and localities still underestimate the role of corruption prevention in the current and future periods. Therefore, the State legal system in general, and the State Audit law in particular, must be continuously revised and improved according to international practices to suit the reality in Vietnam. The auditing sector has not yet issued documents on regulations on accessing and exploiting national databases and electronic data at all levels of State management to implement IT environment audits. Audits are difficult to implement pre-audit and on-site audit methods to help the State Audit's role in inspecting, supervising and controlling the management and use of public finance and assets, so the subjective thinking of auditors participating in audits still attaches importance to key thematic audits of programs, projects and development investment policies with many high-risk areas.
Fourth, on the relationship between the public and the State Audit through the State Audit Office
The objective reason is that investment and equipment in digital technology for e-Government and e-Government are gradually adapting to Industry 4.0, which affects the economic activity, especially the organization of economic activity in the information technology environment, which greatly affects the connection between the public, state management levels and the economic activity delegation in the implementation of exploitation, information collection and coordination of public services. The State Audit has not yet had a policy to invest in digital technology and artificial intelligence to connect the public information channel and the State Audit on pressing issues related to the operation of programs, policies and investment projects for social security development.