Adopted Draft Law on Accounting Chamber Is Just a Start

The Verkhovna Rada adopted the draft law on the Accounting Chamber. It is the first step on the way to reforming the key body of financial control in Ukraine. Now it is important not to stop after the positive changes that draft law No. 10044-d will bring, but to continue working on increasing the efficiency of the Accounting Chamber: to start the selection of members according to a new procedure, to introduce a risk-oriented approach to planning audits and a system for monitoring recommendations, and to delineate its powers from those of the State Audit Service.

Our international partners also emphasized the need to reform the Accounting Chamber. It was one of the conditions for providing us with budgetary assistance and later appeared as a structural beacon in the updated revision of the IMF program.

The approved draft law fulfilled the main requirements of the partners and implemented part of the recommendations provided by TI Ukraine to increase the capacity of the body:

1. Introduced an updated procedure for the competitive selection of members of the Accounting Chamberwith the predominant right of international experts to vote, provided for the openness of the meetings of the advisory group of experts, which will select candidates for positions, and the publication of the methodology of their evaluation and the results of the selection stages.
2. Strengthened the financial independence of the body by removing its officials from under the scope of the Law on Civil Service, determining the size of their salaries and allowances at the level of the law, establishing a special procedure for taking into account budgetary requests of the Accounting Chamber.
3. Eliminated the possibility of direct political influence on the Accounting Chamber through unscheduled audits at the initiative of other bodies. Instead, it introduced a risk-based approach to planning audits.
4. Strengthened monitoring of how the recommendations of the Accounting Chamber are implemented.

However, some risks that we pointed out have not been eliminated before the second reading. The most crucial ones:

1. Risks of political influence on the Accounting Chamber persist. According to the updated procedure, only 6 out of 11 members of the body will be selected, which will constitute a rather shaky majority. At the same time, during the period of martial law, the Verkhovna Rada preserved the possibility of early terminating the powers of the Accounting Chamber members for reasons not provided for by the specialized law.
2. The issue of functions of the Accounting Chamber and the State Audit Service overlapping has not been resolved.
3. The expansion of the body’s powers does not consider the current situation with the lack of more than half of its members and the time required to hold a competition to fill vacant positions.

Thus, the adoption of this law is just the beginning of the reform of the Accounting Chamber, which is long overdue. The correction of these shortcomings in the future can significantly strengthen the institution and add clarity to the division of responsibilities in the field of financial control.