Staying vibrant and relevant for the next five years | Charles Deguara

On 14 December 2023, the President of Malta, Dr George Vella, paid his last official visit to the National Audit Office (NAO). A visit by the Head of State to our Office is always a memorable occasion for us all, especially this being President Vella’s last visit before the expiry of his term of office in three months’ time.

Moreover, this particular visit provided the perfect setting for the official launch of our Office’s new Strategic Plan for the period 2024-2028. I was honoured to present our new plan to the President who, on his part, conveyed his heartfelt appreciation for the sterling work carried out by our Office to promote transparency and accountability, these being two main pillars of good governance, across the public sector.

Essentially, the NAO’s strategic goals are structured around the need to strengthen its institutional capacity, enhancing audit impact, improving stakeholder communication, optimising public visibility, and advancing methodological and technological practices. These goals are geared towards strengthening the NAO’s role as a vigilant guardian, ensuring quality work in line with auditing standards, and fostering effective communication and collaboration with stakeholders.

Indeed, we convey our heartfelt thanks to our internal strategy team, in practice representing all sections – both auditing and administrative - within the NAO, for duly compiling this focused and comprehensive strategy document. In essence, it is based on an extensive consultation process carried out this year. During this period we sought the views and proposals of both internal stakeholders, namely NAO staff, and external stakeholders, including the members of the Public Accounts Committee (whose meetings throughout the year we invariably attend), the leadership of the public service, particularly the Principal Permanent Secretary, the Permanent Secretaries across all Ministries, as well as academia and the general public.

We are thus confident that this strategy document will be crucial in ensuring that throughout the coming five years we remain a vibrant and relevant public sector auditing organisation, duly providing assurance to parliament and, ultimately, to our citizens.  This assurance pertains to the proper utilisation of public funds, ensuring that they are being spent for the purposes approved by the House of Representatives, used in the best manner possible and in accordance with prevailing rules and regulations, and adequately accounted for.

This launch may be considered as the cherry on the cake after another very eventful year for the NAO. Suffice to say that during 2023 we issued 15 publications focusing on diverse and topical themes, incorporating audits of over 100 departments and public entities.

We thus look forward to start implementing the Strategic Plan in the new year with the key purpose of enhancing our audit impact in the public sector.