European union – albania stabilisation and association committee 11 March 2015 table of contents political criteria 3
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4. ECONOMIC CRITERIA
Handling of recommendations of the Sub-Committee, October 2014 Bankruptcy Supervision Agency As of March 2014 until February 2015 the activity of the Bankruptcy Supervision Agency has been as follows: Regulatory activity In order to attain the objective for the provision of the legal framework on the functioning of the Agency, based on paragraph 11 of the DCM no. 852, dated 21.10.2010 it has been drafted the law "On the manner of organisation and functioning of the Bankruptcy Supervision Agency".
In order to attain the objective for the provision of the legal framework on the functioning of the Agency, the aim of the Agency is to improve the bankruptcy legislation. The new law "On bankruptcy" is a process in which the Agency is committed with full capacity for the draft and it has sent it to the IFC experts and other groups of interest. Consultancy services will be provided by International Finance Corporation (IFC) under the project "Debt Resolution and business exit". Inter alia, in implementing the new law "On bankruptcy" several standard forms are being prepared to be used by the parties in process in each phase of the bankruptcy proceedings. Such forms will be used to unify and facilitate the bankruptcy proceedings for all the interested parties. During the period May - July 2014, the Agency has completed the following forms:
Draft acts to be approved:
Licensing On 14.10.2014 the Agency started the process of renewal of licenses of the bankruptcy administrators based on the regulation approved by the Minister of Justice no. 4217 dated 25.05.2012, article 27 "on the definition of detailed rules for the procedures and time limits of organisation of the exam for the licensing of bankruptcy administrators". 17, out of 23 certified bankruptcy administrators, has to renew the licence on 14.10.2014. After the renewal process, only 9 (nine) of the Administrators, submitted the request to renew the licence. There is a total of 15 bankruptcy administrators, 14 of whom have the active status and 1 (one) has the passive status. The Agency, during the period February March 2015 will organise another process of licensing of bankruptcy administrators, based on the order of the Minister of Justice no. 7/2 dated 16.01.2015 "On the setting of the exam date for qualification of bankruptcy administrator". Statistics Law no. 8901 dated 23.10.2002 "On bankruptcy" provides for two ways of application with the court: 1. Liquidation or 2. Reorganisation. Liquidation implies the process during which the debtor is unable to continue his activity and through distribution of his assets the creditors are liquidated. Reorganisation is the process through which the debtor or bankruptcy administrator through the presentation of a reorganisation plan aims at maintaining activity and liquidating the creditors based on a time schedule and repayment plan. Currently, based on the official replies by the Judicial District Courts submitted to the Bankruptcy Supervision Agency during the period January 2014 - December, there have been submitted 148 new requests for declaration of bankruptcy of which 4 are applications for reorganisation. Out of these 148 requests for declaration of bankruptcy only 16 of them have been accepted to follow bankruptcy proceedings and the remaining is dismissed or refused. The processed data are as follows:
Present situation on the process of the ALSAI’s new Law approval
In March 2014, the Parliamentary Commission of Economy and Finance began discussions on draft amendments to the Law of ALSAI, by inviting ALSAI itself to participate. Draft amendments to the law of the ALSAI are also discussed in the Parliamentary Committee on Legal Affairs, Public Administration and Human Rights and the European Integration Committee. Throughout the discussions of the bill in the parliamentary committees, ALSAI has insisted on having the opinion of EU experts on important and controversial issues of the law. The contribution of the EU Delegation in Tirana has been unique in terms of unlimited access to information for ALSAI and in the certification of auditors. Their impact has been very positive in the Parliament, by bringing in the agenda of the Parliament proceedings the approval of the ALSAI’s law. On November 27, 2014 the Albanian Parliament approved the new ALSAI’s law, no. 154/2014 , “On the organization and functioning of the State Supreme Audit institution”, which is in full compliance with Supreme Audit institutions international standards. At the present, ALSAI is adapting the Regulation of the institution with all the amendments coming out from the new Law of ALSAI and is working on the Risk Management Strategy. On both these matters, have been established working Groups. Approximation to the INTOSAI (International organization of Supreme Audit institutions) standards by ALSAI
After the update and approval of the narrative parts of the strategy, ALSAI is going to update the annual plans of the strategy implementation, which is in the same line with mission, vision, strategic objectives and values of the EUROSAI Strategic Plan, 2011-2017and INTOSAI Strategic Plan2011-2016.
The implementation of the ALSAI’s IPA 2013 Project, which is about to start in May 2015 follows the adoption of the basic law for the institution approved by the Parliament on 27 November 2014, which marks the final separation of ALSAI from the audits of inspection type and its profiling as a modern European institution of supreme public audit, which relies entirely its activity on INTOSAI standards and the motto of this organization "Experentiamutua Omnibus prodest” (From common experience benefits all) . The project will be an important technical support for the implementation of the new law, further diversifying the ALSAI’s types of audits and increase of their quality. The technical fiche of the project was circulated by the European Commission in the 28 member countries of the EU and on December 5, 2014, ran the selection process of the SAI's that applied and were interested in this project. On January 22, 2013 the EU Delegation in Tirana has announced the winners of this project and specifically are two European partner SAI’s, the Polish SAI, NIK and the Croatian SAI, with whom we have had a very good cooperation during the last three years. This project which is funded by the EU with the duration of 2 years (until May 2017), is unquestionably a strong support but is also one of the next challenges of ALSAI, which has been shown in recent years that is working hard and realizing its objectives qualitatively, walking safely on his way toward modernization, the one of the realization of its Audits in full compliance with INTOSAI standards and best practices of member states of the European Union. The ALSAI, as the project beneficiary institution has provided in its budget of 2015 the co-financing part and is cooperating with the Ministry of European Integration and the Directorate of Contracting and Financing in the Ministry of Finance, in order to meet duly and with quality all tasks in the various stages of the project implementation.
The EU SAI-s has supported us on this initiative, which is one of the main proposals of the EU Commission. At the moment, there have positively answered 7 SAI’s: the Dutch SAI, the Slovak, the Lithuanian, the Polish, the Slovenian, the Estonian and the Croatian SAI. ALSAI is actually at the selection moment of the SAI which is going to perform this Peer Review.
With the 2014 publications, the ALSAI’s set of publications arises to 35 titles.
Interaction was realized with the scientific community of audit and public finance in Albania represented in the forum by professional organizations in the field, such as the National Council of Accountants, IEKA, etc but also by academics, Albanian professors and researchers of public finances. This interaction was expanded and moved deeper, faced with the ideas, studies, findings and recommendations of the experts of the Supreme Audit Institutions partner (SAI's) and senior representatives of institutions such as the Directorate General of Budget (DG-Budget) of the European Commission, SIGMA, etc. The conference brought new experiences of partner SAI's in the field of public external audit and improving governance, by deepening the fight against corruption. Speakers, especially the representatives of the Polish SAI (NIK), the Turkish Court of Accounts, SAI of Croatia, Austria, Montenegro, etc, provided their experiences during the audit, to fight corruption and financial fraud, showing the most efficient forms of cooperation with other public institutions, civil society, media, etc, in order to increase transparency and accountability of public administration. The event turned into a forum for the exchange of confrontation of views, ideas and experiences, because the Albanian researchers brought their realities in the organization of accounting, public finance and auditing in Albania. The ALSAI’s Scientific conference is already transformed into a consolidated forum and welcomed meeting, where is debated extensively and in depth on the ways of the recovery of public finances and increase of internal and external public audit role, to strengthen the interaction between them, etc. The activity received the maximum of appreciations from many national and international personalities that participated and welcomed the proceedings of the Conference. This conference was made possible thanks to the wide support of partner Supreme Audit Institutions (SAI's), as Polish, Croatian, Montenegrin, Austrian SAI’s, etc, as well as the General Directorate of Budget (DG-Budget) at the European Commission. Among the key messages of the activity coming out by the majority of the papers presented, improving the quality of public financial management as a tool to optimize the achievement of national objectives of the strategic development, was introduced as a major challenge in many countries. The conference gave the thesis that, by improving processes and budgetary institutions, the quality of public finances will be increased, while the efficiency, effectiveness and transparency, comprise today three fundamental objectives of modern budgeting. On the other hand, for the first time in Albania it is opened and enabled a significant debate, the audit risk analysis. Speakers at the Conference defined risk and its analysis in the audit, as one of the most important factors of finance and public investment. Three papers in conference initiated studies to formalize audit risk. The theme of the Fourth Scientific Conference of ALSAI, which will take place in the autumn of this year, will focus on risk analysis.
The diversity of trainings was based on different sources of homologue institutions and professional organizations within and abroad the country, where the most important ones were the trainings provided by two counterparts SAI’s, the TCA of Turkey and NIK of Poland. SIGMA through the project “Support of SIGMA to ALSAI”, continued its contribution to staff training on “System Base Audit approach”, a three days training held in Tirana where took part 25 people, management staff and auditors of ALSAI. A special training session was organized by the School of Public Administration under the Law "On the Status of Civil Servants", which materialized in a five-days training on general topics on the functioning of public administration.25 auditors attended the training. Special attention was paid to the training of newly recruited staff. As part of the Training Programme and the ALSAI training policy, all employees immediately after recruitment undergo a specific training session "Introduction to ALSAI and profession of Public auditor". In its application in November 2014 for a period of two weeks, a group of young auditors participated in the training organized specifically for this purpose paving the way to new experiences as part of the Supreme Audit Institution in the country. They were introduced to the general framework of international and national standards, public audit and the Law on ALSAI, as well as specific technical issues of public auditor profession. In the past three years, the process of training has been shown to be ongoing, sustainable and with concrete achievements. The linear process and its consolidation, made possible in general for the year 2014, that the results achieved in the area of professional development of staff, could put ALSAI at the highest levels with counterpart institutions in more developed countries. Figures speak out about a high performance of participation in trainings according to which it was possible to achieve:
We have noticed that the ALSAI’s recommendations have been implemented in a lower scale. On this regard we suggest to the Government to re-activate an order on the implementation of ALSAI’s recommendations by the state institutions, similar to Order no.70, date 18/04/2006 “On the measures for the implementation of ALSAI’s recommendations, Internal Audit, anti-corruption and administrative Control Department in the Council of Ministers and in line ministries of Prime Minister and Ministers”. |