The 5th Joint Conference between ARABOSAI and EUROSAI took place in Doha (Qatar) on the 7-9 December 2015, hosted by the State Audit Bureau of Qatar and gathering 35 delegations from SAIs of both INTOSAI Regional Working Groups. The main theme was “The role of SAIs in the oversight of government bailout plans”, which was developed through discussion panels on the two sub-themes: “The role of SAIs in monitoring the implementation of bailout plans” and “Future perceptions of the role of SAIs in warning against the risk of financial crises”.

In the opening ceremony, the Prime Minister and Interior Minister, Mr. Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani, called for adoption of policies and measures that grant protection for the global financial, commerce and economic systems, in addition to applying strict monitoring system for global economic indexes to avoid financial crisis in the future. The President of the State Audit Bureau of Qatar, Mr. Sheikh Bandar bin Mohamed bin Saud Al Thani, highlighted that the event was the outcome of the ongoing constructive cooperation between EUROSAI and ARABOSAI, having as main objectives the exchange of information,  experiences and practices on these topics and the improvement of SAI’s performance in this field.  The open ceremony also featured the interventions from the representatives of the Presidencies of ARABOSAI (SAI of Kuwait), EUROSAI (SAI of the Netherlands) and INTOSAI (SAI of China).

During the working sessions of the first sub-theme, “The role of SAIs in monitoring the implementation of bailout plans”, several SAIs presented their experiences regarding auditing the measures and funds on financial market stabilization and the management of the processes of banking restructuring and resolution. Furthermore, in Europe, the banking union was conceived to ensure that European banks are stronger and better supervised and from now on the “bail-in” arrangement (by which shareholders and creditors will be called upon to provide financial support) should be the general rule and “bail-out” the exception. In this regard, the new EU financial and supervision regulation, especially, the introduction of the Single Supervisory Mechanism bring new challenges to EU SAIs.

As for the discussions of the second sub-theme, “Future perceptions of the role of SAIs in warning against the risk of financial crises”, several proposals were presented to address this new role such as  focusing  our audit works on those areas subject to financial risks; identifying weak points of the national financial systems or setting up early warning indicators, among other proposals.

On the last day of the Joint Conference, the Vice-President of SAI of Netherlands, Mr. Kees Vendrik, made a presentation on SAIs in 2020 and the strategic questions for the years to come, highlighting the challenges faced to develop the concept of foresight for SAIs regarding financial crises, whereas the President of the SAI of Ukraine, Mr. Roman Maguta, informed on the role of his SAI in this field and their activities aimed at implementation of anti-crisis actions since 2014.

Afterwards, the draft of the Doha Statement elaborated by the Statement Committee was presented to the audience to gather its feedback. Representatives from several EUROSAI and ARABOSAI members made comments and suggestions on the draft, which was amended accordingly by the Statement Committee. The Doha Statement encourages ARABOSAI and EUROSAI to work towards undertaking an active role in monitoring and overseeing the preventive actions against future financial crises and the setting up and implementation of bail out plans and other measures taken when such crises occur; enhance the control in the area of the management of public debts and promote regular full disclosure of public debts and the adoption of the best practices in managing associated risks; direct attention to governance issues, focusing on transparency and the adequacy of all audit and accountability arrangements, and support the setting up of warning mechanisms against financial crises, among other measures.

The President of the State Audit Bureau of Qatar, the Secretary General of ARABOSAI, Mr. Abdellatif Kharrat, and the representative of the EUROSAI Secretariat, Mr. Javier Medina, Vice-President of the Spanish Court of Audit, took the floor at the Closing Ceremony, during which they reflected on the discussions and main conclusions of the Joint Conference. Also, reflections were made on the maturity of the cooperation between EUROSAI and ARABOSAI after these first 10 years and the convenience of evaluating how cooperation among INTOSAI RWG is carried out, giving new impetus to the format of such cooperation, in order to make it more dynamic and fruitful. In this regard, the representative of the EUROSAI Secretariat seized the opportunity to request EUROSAI members present at the event to pay close attention to the question on cooperation between EUROSAI and RWG which has been included in the survey recently launched on the EUROSAI self-assessment, in order to obtain the most valuable feedback on this issue.

For more information on the V ARABOSAI-EUROSAI Joint Conference, including the participants’ papers, please visit https://conference.sab.gov.qa/en-us/Pages/default.aspx