“Cooperation with a state institution turned to be effective,” states Varuzhan Hoktnyan, Executive Director of Transparency International Anticorruption Center (TIAC) during a video accounting of “Advocacy for the Improvement of the Audit Report Produced by RA Chamber of Control” project. On September 16, 2015 the Council of the Chamber of Control of Armenia approved the “Guide on Public Procurement Audit” for the staff of the Chamber, developed within the framework of the project and assigned the Chamber of Control’s Methodology and International Affairs Department to organize special trainings for the staff and to take respective measures for the development and improvement of methodology for procurement system. “This is an exclusive case when TIAC recommendation became an official document of a state institution,” says Varuzhan Hoktanyan.

The main value added of the “Guide on Public Procurement Audit” is that it systematizes procurement audit and introduces good practice of other countries in the procurement audit of Armenia. With documents on procurement and numbers presented by the government in hand, this guide will provide with certain guidelines and standards to assess how effective procurement was made, and to see the corruption risks. Should the audit be carried out in a more systemic and continuous way, the guide would be more useful. However, contrary to other guides developed by TIAC, “Guide on Public Procurement Audit” is not available to the public, since this guide for government institution was developed for mere service use of the auditors of the Chamber of Control.

Serious shortcomings and problems were revealed as a result of TIAC’s monitoring transparency of some documents of respective bodies, including the Chamber of Control, and comparing Audit Report produced by RA Chamber of Control with similar reports, produced in other countries. In order to improve the document, TIAC launched a project since November 1, 2014 with the assistance of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (the “CBPP), Washington, DC, USA. After meetings with some top representatives of the Chamber of Control of Armenia, it turned out that among other issues, the approach currently applied did not allow to conduct continuous study of the entire state budget, but certain spheres are chosen every year for the Chamber of Control’s oversight. Based on it, TIAC decided to focus on one sphere, and having the experience of monitoring procurement to prepare a “Guide on Public Procurement Audit”, which will coordinate and will enable to have a more detailed view on how qualified audit public procurement undergoes.