COVID Module Question 24

Does the SAI have the mandate and resources necessary to audit emergency spending?

Guidelines
SAIs may not initially have the mandate to audit all funds mobilized in response to the crisis. The effectiveness of governments emergency response will in part depend on proper oversight of all funds, including spending that flows for example through military accounts. For SAIs to play a meaningful role, the government should publicly clarify and/or expand the SAI’s emergency response role; the government’s emergency laws or decrees should NOT restrict the SAI’s mandate to audit emergency fiscal policy packages’; and it may be necessary for the SAI to receive additional funding to fulfill its mandate.

Researchers should provide weblinks to public announcements clarifying the SAI’s role, relevant laws or emergency decrees, and evidence of additional funding provided to SAIs.

Tick boxes: ''Please check the boxes of the items that appear in the relevant documentation. If none of the items are presented, please check ‘None of the Above’. In the comment box, please provide a detailed citation for each item selected below as described in the assessment directions as well as any additional details.''


 * ☐  SAI has a sufficiently broad mandate and full discretion to audit emergency fiscal policy packages
 * ☐  The role of the SAI was clarified and/or expanded as part of the government's emergency response
 * ☐  Additional funding was provided to the SAI as part of the government's emergency response
 * ☐  None of the above

1) What if the SAI has a broad mandate but faces some limitations?
In Qatar, the SAI clearly has a sufficiently broad legal mandate, but in practice has resource limitations and does not audit some government owned companies (see Question 122 in Qatar's questionnaire from the 2019 Open Budget Survey). Given resource limitations, and because the government has a majority stake in Qatar's Water and Electricity Company, which provided services as part of the government's emergency fiscal policy package, we chose "None of the Above" for this question.