ASEANSAI, A New Historical Landmark of Public Auditing In ASEAN Region

The ASEAN Supreme Audit Institutions (ASEANSAI) was established on November 16,2011 in Bali, Indonesia. All Heads of ten Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) of ASEAN member states signed an agreement on theestablishment of the ASEANSAI. The Audit Board of the Republic of Indonesia (BPK) has taken a lead to establish the ASEANSAI and hosted the SAIs Summit of the ASEAN member states at that important event. All SAIs of the ASEAN member states have supported and given strong commitment to build SAIs capacity together through the ASEANSAI.

Mr. Hadi Poernomo, the Chairman of BPK, stated that the ASEANSAI is a professional organization, which is independent, autonomous, and non political. The ASEANSAI becomes a forum to enhance capacity and collaboration in the field of public sector auditing in ASEAN region.

There are several reasons behind the foundation of the ASEANSAI. Hadi added, “first, we have similarities in terms of culture, needs, and challenges in auditing state-finance. “We ack-nowledge that we have dif f erences,but we put forward our similarities and build synergy, which gives greater results than if we do individually.”

In addition, the ASEANSAI would like to contribute positively and constructively to the ASEAN Community, in the future. This will be done by exchanging knowledge and experiences in conducting audits in each member SAI.

In achieving the above expectation, the ASEANSAI will be an entity associated with the ASEAN. The ASEANSAI is not an organ of the ASEAN.This position of the ASEANSAI toASEAN is like the position of ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly.

With the establishment of the ASEANSAI, Hadi believed that ASAEANSAI will play a significant role in developing public auditing in ASEAN region. Furthermore, Hadi added that in the future, the ASEANSAI will promote good governance and support the achievement of the ASEAN community by 2015 though the ASEAN motto, “One Vision, One Identity, and One Sharing and Caring Community”.

ASEANSAI Plan of Action

ASEANSAI would serve as a forum to exchange knowledge and experiences in conducting audits in respective ASEAN member countries. “We can focus on how best practices are implemented, problems are solved, and challenges are overcome. I hope that the ASEANSAI will play a very important role in enhancing our capacity as audit institutions in our respective country,” Hadi said.

The cooperation under ASEAN SAIcould be further developed to cater to theneedof ASEAN memberstates.The ASEANSAI is created to share knowledge and experiences in conducting public sector auditing which has challenged especially in the area of environment, policy review, and performance measurement.

BPKs Vice Chairman, Hasan Bisri, said that the sharing of knowledge and experiences through the forum of ASEANSAI would transform SAIs towards their ideal condition so that they could accomplish their duties as well as possible.

Every SAIs had a continuous transformation process. It contained the development of SAIs organization and the management of training and human resources. “We realize that the quality of humanresourcesisthekey to our success in conducting audits. All of auditors have to take continuous professional education programs in order to upgrade and update their knowledge and skills,” he said.

He expected that the transformation of SAIs, particularly its auditors, could be maintained periodically. “Thats why weve initiated the establishment of ASEANSAI as a way to facilitate such a process of learning,” he noted.

The Story Behinds ASEANSAI Establishment

The establishment of ASEANSAI did not take a long journey.The process was only almost one year. Actually, ideas to establish the ASEANSAI came from Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) of ASEAN member states.The Audit Board of the Republic of Indonesia (BPK) just initiated to make the ideas become real.

One of the ideas was raised when BPK had informal meetings with some SAIs at the XX International Congress of Supreme Audit Institutions (IN-COSAI) on November 22-27,2011 in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Inspired by the idea of the ASEANSAI establishment, BPK brought the idea by intensive communication and further discussion with all SAIs of ASEAN member states. For example, BPK approached some SAIs to have their support and commitment. In doing this, BPK developed a concept paper exploring BPKs framework and proposal, which was the embryo of the ASEANSAI Agreement.

After BPK obtained the support and commitment of all SAIs of ASEAN member states, BPK arranged two preparation meetings, which were a technical meeting and a senior officials meeting.

In the Technical Meeting, BPKs member,Taufiequrachman Ruki stated that the establishment of ASEANSAI is part of the contribution in establishing the ASEAN community by 2015. An effort to increase the collaboration of SAIs of ASEAN member states is needed to reach the goals and objectives of ASEAN, as explained by Taufiequrachman Ruki.

The Technical Meeting was attended by the Director General of ASEAN Cooperation of the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Djauhari Oratmangun, and the SAI delegates from ASEAN member states.

One of other major steps was the Senior Officials Meeting (SOM) that took place in the Crowne Plaza Hotel Jakarta in 13-14 October 2011. The meeting was attended by delegates from the SAIs of the ten ASEAN member states.

The meeting was officially opened by the BPK chairman Hadi Poernomo and attended by the BPKs Vice Chairman and members, the Indonesian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Marty Natalegawa, and the SAI delegates of ten ASEAN member member states, which were Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao P.D.R, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand,and Vietnam.

Hadi Poernomo stated that the meeting wasan import ant milestonein the history of the ASEANSAI. ASEANSAI will strengthen the cooperation among SAIs of ASEAN member states through knowledge and experience sharing. “The cooperation under the ASEANSAI is expected to enhance SAIs capacity”, added Hadi Poernomo.

After successful results of the previous meetings, BPK arranged a summit of SAIs of ASEAN member states as a related summit of the 2011 ASEAN summit. At this summit, the ASEANSAI Agreement was signed by all Heads of SAIs of ASEAN member states. This meant that ASEANSAI was officially established, and BPK was appointed as the first Chairman of the ASEANSAI for 2011-2013.

Harian Seputar Indonesia