The role of the State Audit Office in enhancing public entities’ accountability in the management and use of the state budget

Abstract

Accountability is a common term in modern public administration and is one of the four pillars of state budget management (transparency, predictability, accountability and public participation). In the process of development, through its audit activities, the State Audit Office of Vietnam (SAV) has actively contributed to enhancing the accountability of public entities assigned or decentralized to manage and use the state budget. Given the increasingly high demands of public administration and as an auditing body established by the National Assembly, SAV needs to continuously affirm its role in strengthening the accountability of public entities in the management and use of the state budget. Some fundamental solutions are proposed, including: i) supplementing certain content related to "accountability" in the Law on State Budget, the Law on State Audit and other auditing regulations; ii) expanding the scope of audits; and iii) increasing the public disclosure of audit results.