The State Supreme Audit Institution (SSAI) reports to the parliament annually on the implementation of the budget but also whenever required by the parliament or audits or/and final audit reports either upon the request of the SSAI Chairman or when required by the parliament [1].
In practice, the SSAI has reported to the parliament only on the implementation of the budget and the on the performance of the SSAI [2, 3].
The reports focus generally on the presentation of the overall findings but do not provide detailed analyses on particular areas of spending, including spending on secret items. Additionally, the auditing on secret items is not conducted separately, which negatively affects the overall transparency of auditing, because to avoid releasing classified information on secret items, the legislators do not have full access to other parts of the auditing report [4].

Generally, the Albanian Parliament does not play an active role concerning the auditing of spending by defence and security institutions [1, 2]. Despite the legal provisions which provide for continued interactions between the SSAI and the parliament, no follow-up activities are conducted by the Committee on National Security (CNS).
The SSAI audit of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in 2015, revealed several irregularities, yet the parliament did not take any action, including organising a hearing with the SSAI [3]. Similarly, no action was undertaken by the parliament in response to the SSAI audit of the State Intelligence Service (SHISH) in 2016 on the irregularities found [4]. The parliamentary practice so far shows that in overall the audit reports of the annual accounts of the security sector have not generated any proper parliamentary debate.

As per Art. 192 of the Algerian Constitution (2016), annual reports from the Court of Auditors are sent to the Presidents of the Council of the Nation and the APN (1). There is no evidence that the reports are provided to the whole parliament or that they are subject to debate. As has been outlined in question 17, according to media reports, the Ministry of National Defence was not very cooperative in providing information to the auditors and only provided general answers to questions (2).

Information on the security sectors appears to be classified. Uncovering secrets of the defence service is punishable by law, as outlined in Art. 63, Art. 66, and Art. 67 of the Algerian Penal Code (3), (4).

This sub-indicator has been marked Not Applicable due to the fact that a review of articles published by the APN suggests that the annual reports of the Court of Auditors are not discussed in the parliament (1), (2). As has been outlined in question 1C, the executive has close relations to the parliament, it cannot be considered independent. Critics have complained in the news that the parliament does not review the annual report (3).

No audit reports on the defence and security sector have been produced and submitted to parliament. The audit court is supposed to present annual reports on the state accounts that may be subject to an audit if requested by Parliament (Law 13/10, Art. 9-10) (1). However, the latest annual State Accounts Audit Court Report, published in 2017, is on the year 2014, only contains summary information on the defence sector (2).

Requests for audits on other sectors by opposition parties in parliament have been repeatedly rejected by the ruling party (see examples under Q1A) (2).

Since no audit reports on the defence and security sector have been submitted to Parliament, no debate has taken place. This indicator has thus been marked Not Applicable.

There is Not Enough Information to score this indicator. The Control of Intelligence Organisations and Activities is exclusively in charge of auditing the intelligence system, in accordance with the current regulations of the Bicameral Commission, so they are not bodies that can be audited in principle by the public administration control bodies, such as SIGEN or AGN. One of the tasks of the Commission, in accordance with article 33 of the law, is “the preparation and annual referral to the National Executive Power and the National Congress of a secret report” in which they analyse and evaluate “the activities, operation, and organisation of the National Intelligence System based on the execution of the National Intelligence Plan;” describe the development of the control carried out by the Commission in compliance with its missions; and make recommendations to improve the functioning of the National Intelligence System. [1] However, as noted by CSOs such as Vìa Libre and ICCSI, despite requests for access to information, these reports are not made available, since they have the protection of current regulations. [2]

There is Not Enough Information to score this indicator. The Bicameral Commission has the exclusive task of overseeing the agencies that make up the intelligence system, especially with regard to the reserved funds (which have returned to this category since 2016). Therefore, due to a lack of evidence of the activities of this Commission, it is not possible to refer to parliamentary scrutiny in practice. [1]

There is not enough information to score this indicator, as the audit reports on the defence sector are not disclosed to public. In this regard, it is difficult to assess its comprehensiveness. [1] The Conclusion of the Audit Chamber of the Republic of Armenia on the State Budget for particular year (audit report), which is required by the Law on the Budgetary System of the Republic of Armenia, is very general and does not contain any details on any area of budget expenditures, including expenditures on defence (see, for example, the Audit Chamber Conclusion on the Execution of the 2019 State Budget [5]). At the same time, during 2018-2020, every year audit of the defence sector has been included in the Chamber’s Annual Action Plan (see the Chamber’s annual action plans for 2018, 2019 and 2020 [2]) and was regularly conducted by the 10th Structural Department of the Audit Chamber (this Department, which is one of 10 structural departments of the Chamber and is specialized on the audit of the defence sector). On the “Current Conclusions” page of the Chamber’s web-site is posted the report on the results of the audit of selected aspects of defence sector conducted in 2019. [3] The report is labelled as “top secret” and is not accessible for the public. According to the Chamber’s 2020 annual action plan, the same 10th Department now is auditing the procurement processes of the defence sector [4].

According to the Law on Rules of Procedures of the National Assembly, the Audit Chamber’s annual reports related to issues classified as confidential and its mid-term conclusions are subject of discussion in the corresponding committee. Though there is no evidence on open debates towards the Audit Chamber reports; however, according to the Rules of Procedure, those are discussed in closed-door discussions within the Committee on Defence [1].

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) does receive audits of the 6 Australian intelligence and security agencies prepared by the Auditor-General and his or her supporting Australian National Audit Office [1], and these audits do include secret expenditure (“Under the provisions of section 105D of the PGPA Act, the Finance Minister has made determinations that allows the Chief Executives of ASIO and ASIS to omit certain financial information from their financial statements where it could reasonably be expected to be operationally sensitive… The ANAO noted that the section 105D determinations, as applied by ASIO and ASIS, impacted certain disclosures in the financial statements, but ‘do not impact the ability of the ANAO to audit the underlying transactions of the entities.’” The other agencies are either part of Defence and therefore, their expenditure is included in Defence financial statements, or do not have section 105D determinations that they may omit financial information [1, p49-51]. A federal politician interviewee praised quality of oversight efforts by PJCIS, helped along by wide-ranging disclosures by security and intelligence agencies [2].

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) is responsible for scrutinising audits prepared by the Australian National Audit Office of the 6 security and military intelligence agencies as part of their annual review of administration and security (see Q28A). The PJCIS report produced as part of this review indicates that, “The Committee is privy to detailed, largely classified, information about the administration and expenditure of agencies. Each agency provides information on its administration and expenditure to the Committee in the form of classified written submissions, by appearing to give evidence in private (classified) hearings, and by providing private briefings to the Committee, at its request” [1]. The PJCIS regularly reports having witnesses from intelligence agencies, for example the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, appear before it [2]. Because the audit reports themselves are classified [3], the discussions around the audit reports would also be classified, so it is difficult to say whether audit report shortcomings are highlighted. However, a former federal politician interviewee praised the level of authority and quality of oversight efforts of the Committee [4], indicating that the robustness of the scrutiny of audits is high.

The Chamber of Accounts reports annually to the parliament. However, these reports do not discuss security and defence audits; legislators are not provided audit reports on secret items. It is possible that secret programmes are not audited at all. So far, no serious discussions have been held on the reports of the Chamber of Accounts in the parliament (1). The last parliamentary report was in May this year and there was no information on the defence and security sector. Some experts believe that the Chamber of Accounts is unable to reveal serious corruption in the country. They explain this by the fact that the distribution of power in the country is not properly conducted (2).
Reports published on the website of the Chamber of Accounts do not contain any information on the security sector (3). Based on this information, we can assume that the defence and security sector is not a priority for the Chamber of Accounts. However, Minister of Defence Zakir Hasanov, said the Chamber of Accounts made audit in the Ministry of Defence and no violations had been detected (4). But experts think otherwise. According to them, the activity of the Chamber of Accounts in the security sector has been limited. The instructions in this direction come from the ruling family and the military structures. As a result, the Chamber of Accounts cannot conduct serious, comprehensive audits of military structures.

No audit reports on military structures have been given to the parliament, and there has been no parliamentary debate on any reports. In Azerbaijan, the military sector is considered a “sensible area” for the government and there is no practice of preparing any official report on the problems in the army (1). Based on the reviewer’s interviews with two MPs, the reviewer believes that parliament discusses audit findings in closed-door meetings, but does not press the military for responses, nor comment on the quality of the audit.
The Committee for Defence, Security and Anti-Corruption in Azerbaijani Parliament doesn’t have the power to scrutinise the military budget, personnel management, defence policy planning, arms acquisition, and demand information on these areas (2).
According to the website of the parliament (3), the Committee on Defense, Security and Anti-Corruption issues draft laws on the following issues or gives opinions on draft laws, the state of emergency and the military situation; defence; military service; the status of military servicemen and other issues; basics of state security, methods and means of its provision; state border regime.
According to the Internal Regulations of the Parliament (3), the Committees have the right to demand from the central and local executive and judicial authorities, local self-governing bodies, state and non-state enterprises, institutions and organizations the documents and materials necessary for the preparation of draft laws and resolutions, to invite their representatives (experts) to the meetings of the committee (4).

According to interviewees and based on internet research (Political Risk), the Shura Council is not provided with any reports from the defence sector concerning critical issues, including the secret item budget [1, 2].

Given that the Shura Council is not provided with audit reports on secret items or the defence sector in general, this indicator has been marked ‘Not Applicable’ [1, 2].

Legislators are not provided with audit reports on the security sector and secret items, either for the military or the intelligence services [1].

This indicator is marked ‘Not Applicable’ as the legislature and parliamentary committees do not receive audit reports on secret items.

The Court of Auditors (Rekenhof) is reponsible for auditing the annual accounts of military and intelligence services. It distributes its annual report, including all expenditures, to the Chamber of Representatives in accordance with Article 180 of the Belgian constitution [1].

The Chamber of Representatives has the right to require documentation or testimony from the security services, or to highlight shortcomings in the audit process [1, 2, 3]. Parliamentary debate on the sensitive issues will take place behind closed doors, to ensure national safety.

The Ministry of Finance and Treasury prepares the quarterly, semi-annual and annual reports on the Execution of the Budget of the Institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina and International Obligations of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The quarterly reports have to be submitted to the Council of Ministers; whereas the semi-annual and annual reports are also submitted to the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina [1, 2].
Yearly audit reports of the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina (including the security sector) are made by the Audit Office of the Institutions of BiH. The reports are delivered to the audited institution, Parliamentary Assembly of BiH, the Council of Ministers and the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Once they are submitted, they are also made public (except the audit report for the Intelligence and Security Agency of BiH) [3]. Before being voted on in both houses of the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH [4, 5], the reports are discussed and adopted by the Committees on Finance and Budget (of both houses) and the Joint Committee on Defence and Security of BiH (in the case of the Intelligence and Security Agency of BiH, the Joint Committee on Supervision of the work of Intelligence and Security Agency of BiH) [4, 5]. The audit reports are the same for all the institutions and do not have to disclose secret items or secret programmes.

Before being voted on in both houses of the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH, the audit report for the Ministry of Defence is discussed and adopted by committees on finance and budget (of both houses) and the Joint Committee on Defence and Security of BiH [1, 2].
The Joint Committee on Defence and Security of Bosnia and Herzegovina (JC) report to both houses of the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH on security-related matters and has the authority to summon the minister of defence (or any other official from the Ministry of Defence or the armed forces) to answer to questions of the members of the JC, most recently the oversight exercised in regards of public procurements has been ad hoc depending on specific issues being raised in the audit reports [3].

The Bostwana Auditor General does not produce exclusive audit reports on the DISS. The Annual Reports only refer to the umbrella ministry, the Ministry of Defence, Justice and Security and no specific reference on the DISS [1,2]. It is the Audit Report of DISS that is not discussed. However, the Audit findings of other Defence and Security departments are published by the Auditor General and discussed in Parliament.

The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Foreign Affairs, Justice, Defence and Security does request for documentation and testimony from the Security Services Department [1]. In 2019, the new DISS Head stated that ‘In line with giving the Directorate of Intelligence and Security Services a facelift and bringing Batswana closer to the critical security organ”, Director of DISS Brigadier Peter Magosi says the organisation’s act would undergo review to root out any elements that may have impeded it from fully delivering on its mandate [2]. To iron out perceptions of misappropriation of funds by the organisation, which by nature is highly secretive, Director Magosi said he had requested for the services of the Auditor General to audit the DISS, which has never been audited since its inception, to ensure effective service delivery [2]. Director Magosi said his intention as the new leader was to have an oversight committee, elected by Parliament, established. He said the security agency had benchmarked internationally and shall institute best practices to ensure that there was accountability within the DISS without compromising its operations as there was no legal instrument in Botswana to enable the undertaking of a specialised financial audit’ [2].

Legally, the Parliament can have access to any documents, regardless of their classification, and including classified audits made by the Court of Auditors (TCU). The TCU, for instance, is an entity created, among other functions, to support the legislature in budgetary voting and decisions. Besides elaborating their own evaluations of the programs, they require the armed forces to produce extensive reports of its activities [1]. The TCU has a specific committee responsible that deals with national defence (Secretaria de Controle Externo da Defesa Nacional e da Segurança Pública) [2] and has released reports related to the PROSUB program (the Brazilian nuclear submarine development program) [3]. These reports are all available to legislators and can be debated by them – although there is no evidence of official meetings to discuss these audits.

Defence-related legislative committees do not discuss the results of audits undertaken by the TCU. There are public hearings where the committees invite ministers and commanders to talk about strategic defence projects; however, the assessor could not find any register of meetings specifically discussing the results of an audit [1, 2].

The Constitution allows the Supreme Audit Institution to monitor government accounts and provide recommendations for better management. It produces annual reports, which it sends to the president. However, there is no evidence that its reports contain secret defence items. Additionally, there is no evidence showing that the Supreme Audit Institution has access to these secret items. Burkina Faso Open Budget Survey 2017 elaborates on that by stating that the “legislature and supreme audit institution in Burkina Faso provide weak oversight of the budget” with a ranking of 24 out of 100 (1). As for the public availability of budget documents, the report further indicates that no audit report was produced from 2010 to 2017 in Burkina Faso (1). In any case, there is no evidence that the part of the military budget allocated to secret items is available for public access (2), (3), (4).

No evidence shows that parliament questions the military on findings, and requires documentation or testimony from the military regarding the incorporation of audit recommendations parliamentary scrutiny of defence account (1), (2), (3), (4). As such, this indicator has been marked Not Applicable.

The Executive has the sole authority to set up commissions of inquiry to investigate and audit defence and security institutions [1] [2]. Such scrutiny can only be carried out at the discretion of the Head of State [3]. The U.S. Department of State 2018 Fiscal Transparency Report states, “Cameroon’s supreme audit institution audited the government’s accounts and made its audit reports publicly available but was vulnerable to political pressure… Information in budget documents, however, was incomplete” [4]. According to the same report, “the government maintained off-budget accounts not subject to adequate audit or oversight, and there were similar concerns regarding the budget for the security services” [4].

No other evidence could be found that secret defence programmes are subject to internal or external audit. The Constitution (Article 35) states that the government is not required to provide information or explanations to the legislature regarding national defence or the security of the state, in effect limiting the ability of Parliament to conduct effective scrutiny [1] [2] as confirmed in the State Department’s 2018 report.

Because legislators are not provided audit reports on secret items, this indicator has been marked Not Applicable.

Legislators are not given room to question findings because the military institutions are not audited except at the discretion of the Head of State [1] [2]. According to a U.S. Department of State report (2018), Cameroon’s government “maintained off-budget accounts not subject to adequate audit or oversight, and there were similar concerns regarding the budget for the security services” [2]. No other evidence could be found that secret defence programmes are subject to internal or external audit. The Constitution (Article 35) states that the government is not required to provide information or explanations to the legislature regarding national defence or the security of the state, in effect limiting the ability of Parliament to conduct effective scrutiny [3] [4], as confirmed in the State Department’s 2018 report.

Secret programs may be scrutinised by a committee of parliamentarians with appropriate clearances, who have the power to audit (financially, or for impact) any agency or department that carries out security or defence activities. However, this is a small committee which may be unable to carry out regular comprehensive audits, and its mandate is to investigate as it see fits. Its yearly reports may contain no audits at all. Further, these reports are redacted such that they are releasable to the public, making the value of any audits they do contain tenuous. [1] A defence think tank has questioned the ability of the Committee to make a difference in practice. [2] [3]

There is not enough information to score this indicator. No audit of the annual accounts by the OAG for DND, CSIS or CSE could be identified [1] nor any planned by OAG for the annual expenditures of DND, CSIS or CSE. [2] Through these committees are only a few years old, there is no indication of independent financial audit reports on secret items/programmes for legislators to access.

The evidence suggests that legislators do not receive detailed audit reports regularly. According to the legislation [1], the Ministry of National Defence (MDN) shall present, in secret sessions, reports on the financial planning and budget execution as well as acquisition and investment projects that are restricted or of a secret nature. There are not specific prescriptions about audit reports of military and intelligence services. A review of ordinary and special sessions of the Permanent Commission of Defence in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate reveals no public information about sessions dedicated to reviewing audit reports. The exception is the Special Investigatory Commission, which is organised to study specific issues in the defence sector, among them the misuse of resources from the Restricted Law of Copper [2, 3]. In these investigatory commissions, legislators have requested information related to expenditures, acquisitions, and budget executions in the armed forces, and they have commented and given recommendations about the control and audit of these processes. However, information has been provided as a result of specific investigations, most of them reactive to controversies and public scandals. Likewise, legislators comment that information is not always detailed and disaggregated [4, 5, 6].

In specific instances, such as Special Investigatory Commissions, legislators have been able to require documentation and testimony regarding processes of internal control and audit in the use of resources in defence and military institutions, particularly resources of reserved character and those involved in the Restricted Law of Copper [1, 2]. In the final reports of investigatory commissions, legislators have elaborated recommendations of diverse nature, including comments about the audit capacity and internal control in the organisms examined. However, there is not a system to evaluate the incorporation of these recommendations, nor special faculties and resources to follow-up advances in the matters commented. It must be noted that, as an exception of the rule, initiated a plan of internal reform addressing some of the recommendations of the Special Investigatory Commission of 2016, including the optimisation of the audit capacity of the army’s comptroller and the strengthening of the system of institutional control [3]. Although these measures were presented to the Commission of National Defence of the Chamber of Deputies, these practices have not been replicated by other institutions regularly.

The National People’s Congress does not debate the audit accounts of the security sector. The NPC’s role in relation to the defence and security sector is simply to rubber-stamp the annual budget. There is no oversight or involvement in accountability processes. [1]

The NPC is not provided with audit reports for secret items. As such, this indicator is scored ‘Not Applicable’.

The Congress of the Republic receives different types of reports related to the operation of the defence sector and the National Intelligence Directorate (DNI). Every year, the document “Memories to Congress” must be delivered, outlining strategic planning, the implementation of security and defence policy, strategic objectives, and budget spending. [1] Through the political control carried out by the legislature, information can be requested at any time from the Executive, the Military Forces, or from the Police on intelligence matters. This information is delivered through response to questionnaires generated by the legislature. It should be added that the Legal Commission for Monitoring Intelligence and Counterintelligence Activities by Congress is in charge of exercising political control and monitoring, as well as the supervision of the use of resources in intelligence and counterintelligence tasks. However, there are no public documents that account for such control. The annual report of the DNI describes the expenses made generally in categories and aggregated: personnel expenses, general expenses, transfers, operations, and investment. However, the secret items with disaggregated data are not clearly detailed. Likewise, the DNI reports on projects related to infrastructure and the strengthening of intelligence actions in the Bank of Programmes and National Investment Projects (BPIN). However, said information is not detailed, so the results and impacts of the implementation of said projects are unknown. Lastly, the DNI presents the level of budget execution through the categories described above and reports the performance of public contracts with private entities, information that is not presented in a comprehensive or detailed way. [2]

The publication of the accounting statements of the Ministry of Defence that are sent to the General Accounting Office of the Nation are published on its website, with the financial statements presented and explained item by item. With regard to reserved expenses, the exceptional nature of these expenses and the justification for their exclusion in the financial statements are specified. [3] Faced with this situation, Interviewee 6 reports that in matters of national intelligence there are very few available data. [4] Despite filing petitions, the response of the authorities has been the refusal of additional information due to national security issues. There is no budget information on intelligence actions such as wiretapping, reward payments, and national security-related expenses. Interviewee 1 reports that there is no information regarding budget monitoring actions on the spending of secret items related to military intelligence. [5] Thus the legislature receives limited information on the spending of secret items for the defence sector.

Citizen consultation processes are promoted through a variety of different areas of participation, such as through formal mechanisms like the Citizen Oversight Committees established by Law 850 of 2003. [1] This legislation ensures that community organisations exercise control and surveillance over public or administrative management, but does not specify action in the field of defence and security. The Citizens’ Security and Cohabitation Councils (Decree 1284 of 2017), [2] is an interinstitutional coordination body between territorial political-administrative authorities, which allows for civil society participation and open thematic sessions with the territorial actors, emphasizing cooperation and information sharing to dismantle organised crime. [3] Such legislation does not then require public and security entities to link or define the elements of the participation of citizens. On the other hand, there are the bodies and standards developed in the field of security, defined in the Peace Agreement signed between the Government of Colombia and the former FARC-EP, which clearly establish instances of citizen participation, such as the Comprehensive System of Security Guarantees for the Exercise of Policy (created from Decree Law 895 of 2017); [4] the National Security Guarantees Commission (created as of Decree Law 154 of 2017), [5] which has the participation of representatives of civil society; and the Comprehensive Security and Protection Program for Communities and Organizations in the Territories (created from Decree 660 of 2018), [6] which is currently inactive. Therefore, although there are instances of participation, many of these spaces are inactive or their conclusions are not included within the defence and security policy.

Audit reports on the annual accounts of military intelligence are not submitted to the members of the NA Commission de Sécurité et de Défense (CSD) or any other members of the NA. The CSD has basic formal rights of scrutiny over the Loi de Programmation Militaire (LPM), as it does, de jure, over budgetary allocations to defence and security in the annual Budget Law (Loi de Finances). But it cannot examine or issue recommendations on the accounts subordinated to the Presidency and classified as secret, such as the Coordination Nationale du Renseignement (CNR). Financial audits at the Ministry of Defence are typically carried out by the Inspection Générale des Armées (IGA), under the authority of the minister of defence. The IGA is nominally tasked with operational oversight of the armed forces, as per Decree No. 2016-257 (3 May 2016) (Portant Organisation du Ministere de la Défense), published in the Official Journal on May 23, 2016 (1).

The Comptroller General at the MoD (Contrôle Général de l’Administration et des Finances de la Défense, CGAFD) monitors the proper functioning of departments and agencies within the MoD. It is tasked with oversight of administrative, financial and technical issues, among others. This structure, like the IGA, is under the direct authority of the minister of defence (1). In addition, there is a Direction des Finances (Article 13 of Decree No. 2016-257), but it is not tasked with auditing or oversight. Instead, its mandate is to prepare and execute the defence budget, including the payment of salaries and services (1).

The mandates of IGA, CGAFD and Direction des Finances are described in Decree No. 2016-257. As per Article 3 of Decree No. 2016-257, the IGA and CGAFD are services attached directly to the cabinet of the minister of defence. There is no mention of any kind of NA oversight of the activities of these auditing mechanisms.

Art. 3 – The following are attached to the Cabinet:
– The General Inspectorate of the Armed Forces abbreviated IGA;
– The General Control of the Administration and Finance of Defence abbreviated as CGAFD (1).

Because legislators are not provided with audit report on secret items, this indicator has been marked Not Applicable.

The parliamentary committee called the Committee on the Intelligence Services (Udvalget vedrørende Efterretningstjenesterne, Kontroludvalget) conducts parliamentary oversight of DDIS (see Q21) (1). The mandate of the+AA14 committee is written in very general broad terms [2]. The committee consists of five members from the parliament’s five largest parties. The incumbent government is, among other things, obliged to orient the committee before it issues guidelines and instructions for the DDIS [2]. It is written into law that the committee has no mandate to exercise control or scrutinise the appropriations for the DDIS. The committee can, however, be provided with information on general aspects of the DDIS budget [1].

There are no indications that audit reports of the DDIS annual accounts have been subject to parliamentary debate during the last two years [1]. Further, as the parliamentary Committee on the Intelligence Services’s mandate does not cover budgets and appropriations, committee debates on this issue must be non-existing [2].

According to our sources, the Parliament does not discuss defence and intelligence reports. The Parliament has no access to reports on secret items or operations in any form. The military and intelligence coordinate and work closely with the head of the state who has the power and authority to bypass the Parliament (1), (2), (3). Audit reports of annual accounts are presented to the Parliament for discussion (4). However, the section on defence in the accounts does not provide a breakdown, and therefore cannot be discussed (5). This absence of breakdown of defence expenditure is protected by law (6) and the Constitution (7).

This sub-indicator has been marked Not Applicable because, according to our sources, there are no audit reports provided to the Parliament; therefore, there are no debates (1), (2), (3), (4). Legislators are not allowed to access secret information, and the law does not allow them to scrutinize these secret items or programmes. When reporting of audit happens, it is usually direct to the president of the republic. For example, the GI law allows a unit from the CAA to operate from within the GI, and only allows their reports to be sent to the president (5). Needless to say, the president almost always comes from a military background.

Annual account reports by the National Audit Office may include the legality of economic activities, economic transactions of the auditee and the performance with regard to its management, organisation and activities. An audit report may also contain recommendations concerning elimination and future prevention of identified deficiencies. In accordance with the National Audit Office Act, the National Audit Office submits reports about the overview of the use and preservation of state assets to the State Budget Control Select Committee. [1] To discuss the audit results, a representative of the National Audit Office and an expert are usually invited to present the report. Submitted reports have been described as “thorough and efficient” by the State Budget Control Select Committee. [2]

The State Budget Control Select Committee of the Riigikogu has the right to summon officials and private persons and obtain oral and written explanations from them, as well as ask relevant documents to be submitted. [1] The Committee has previously invited relevant experts from the defence sector. The Committee has once visited Baltic Defence College during the academic year of 2016/2017. [2] The committee also visited the Defence Ministry together with the National Audit Office of Estonia in 2014. The discussion with the Permanent Secretary of the Defence Ministry along with other officials focused on the shortages that were brought out by the National Audit Office in their report. The officials of the ministry were obliged to explain how will the shortages be eliminated. [3] Sessions of the Select Committee where audit results are discussed are public. However, the committee has the right to decide to make the session partly closed in order to protect personal data, information subject to banking secrecy, trade secrets, state secrets or classified information of foreign states. [4]

Auditing of the annual accounts of the security sector take place similarly to other sectors. The State Treasury collects the central state accounts from bookkeeping units, including the Ministry of Defence (the Ministry and the Defence Forces, including the defence administration’s construction agency), the Ministry of the Interior (Border Guard and policing, including the Finnish Security and Intelligence Service) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (crisis management) and prepares a proposition of the annual central state accounts to the Ministry of Finance, which again prepares the Government’s Annual Report. [1, 2]

Law on the State Budget, Chpt 2, Section 18 states: The Government’s Annual Report must provide correct and sufficient information on the compliance with the state budget, the state’s revenue and expenses, the state’s financial status and effectiveness. Section 21 states: The annual final accounts and the annual report of a state agency or institution on the compliance with the state budget, the unit’s revenue and expenses, the unit’s financial status and effectiveness. [3]

The Government’s Annual Report and the final central state accounts go through the normal parliamentary process i.e. are introduced to the Parliament by the Government, moved on to the respective Parliamentary Committees to investigate and discuss them (the Audit Committee preparing the report), and brought back to the Parliament for decision making in a plenary session. When discussing the reports, both the Parliamentary Committees and the Parliament has the right to ask for further documentation from the relevant ministries and state agencies or institutions. In addition, the National Audit Office inspects the annual central state accounts and provides a report on them. [4]

Moreover, it has separately inspected the Defence Forces’ material acquisition processes in 2017 and the Defence Forces’ steering system in 2017. These reports have been submitted to the Defence Forces and the Ministry of Defence, as well as to the Parliamentary Defence Committee, the Parliamentary Auditing Committee, the Ministry of Finance and to the Ministry of Finance’s Controller. [5] It is not possible to know exactly what information legislators receive given that the reports they publish are classified however, the annual report of the committee suggests that it was happy with the level of access to information it was granted. [6]

At the time of writing, the final central state accounts for 2019 are in the parliamentary process. The predeeding fiscal years’ (2018, 2017, 2016 and 2015) reports with their related documentation (from the Parliamentary Committees and the Parliament) are available on the Parliament’s website. This documentation shows that, for example, the Parliamentary Defence Committee has invited experts from both the Ministry of Defence and the Defence Forces to discuss the final accounts, received further information upon request, and given recommendations in its statement to the Audit Committee to be included in the report. [1, 2, 3, 4] In addition, the Parliamentary Committees have discussed the National Audit Offices inspection reports for 2016 and 2018. [5, 6] These inspection reports comment on the audit process as well.

Once a year, the CVFS publishes a short report about « special funds », in the form of an appendix to the DPR annual public report. [1] The report mostly addresses accounting methodology issues, and doesn’t go into detail about expenditures, or the expected or actual impact of the actions secretly funded.
In the latest issue of that report, the CVFS states: “While we observe in Europe and the major Western democracies a strengthening of intelligence control and professionalisation capabilities, the French model appears perfectible in terms of democratic control of specialised intelligence services.” [1]
In recommendation n°16, the members of the committee regret the lack of means to handle their task, particularly in terms of human resources. They also regret that a magistrate of the Cour des comptes – with the expertise and means of the Court – doesn’t sit within the committee any longer. The CVFS also requires in recommendation n°17 that its budget be funded from elsewhere than from the special funds it is supposed to control, to gain independence. [1]
An interview with the co-administrator of the National Assembly Defence Commission [2] confirmed that, while parliamentarians who are members of the DPR and CVFS can be granted access to classified information on the accounts of military and intelligence services, the extent of this access (“secret-défense” or “très secret-défense” in the new classification [3]) is not clear, depending on each case, and is not granted automatically. No record of audit reports of the accounts of the security sector being annually discussed by the parliament was found.

No trace was found of any discussion in Parliament about the findings and/or recommendations of the CVFS, appearing in the CVFS appendix of the DPR annual report. [1]

The Federal Audit Office acts as an external supervisory body and evaluates all accounts of the security sector on a regular basis. The Federal Audit Office informs the German Bundestag, the Federal Council and the Federal Government about its most important audit results in its annual report, entitled the ‘Comments on the Budgetary and Economic Management of the Federal Government’ (‘Bemerkungen’). Outside the ‘Bemerkungen’, the Federal Audit Office can inform the German Bundestag, Bundesrat and Federal Government about matters of particular importance at any time (see Section 99 of the Federal Budget Code) [1].

Audit reports are distributed to the relevant parliamentary committees, such as the Defence Committee or the Confidential Committee. Additionally (with the exception of the accounts of the intelligence services) all members of the Bundestag and the parliamentary groups have the right to ask questions in accordance with Articles 20 and 38 of the German Basic Law. Legislators are provided with detailed audit reports related to the security sector and other secret programmes. This serves to ‘provide individual MPs with the information they need to do their job in a quick and reliable manner’ [2]. The procedural structure of parliamentary questions is regulated in § 100 ff of the Rules of Procedure of the German Bundestag (‘Geschäftsordnung des Deutschen Bundestages’), which covers major and minor inquiries, individual questions and ‘Question Time’ (‘Fragenstunde’), during which questions are put to the Federal Government [3]. Audit reports, for example, examine major and minor expenditures. The Defence Budget (Einzelplan 14) is part of the Federal Budget and is therefore included in the annual accounts of the Federal Ministry of Finance for the entire Federal Budget. The annual accounts are audited by the Federal Audit Office and the Auditing Committee of the German Bundestag is informed of the Federal Audit Office’s ‘Bemerkungen’ (‘Comments on the Budgetary and Economic Management of the Federal Government’).

For the military screening service (MAD), the following applies: the audit report by the Federal Audit Office on the annual accounts of the special budget is negotiated during the meeting between the Confidential Committee and the Parliamentary Control Panel concerning the economic plan of the MAD. The audits of the Federal Audit Office assess the observance of regulations that are based on the execution of expenses, the collection of revenue and the meeting of obligations; they also check for error-free accounts, allocation and registration of income and expenses as well as compliance with the rules and principles applicable to budgetary and economic management. The Federal Audit Office also checks whether the most favourable relationship between the purpose pursued and the resources used has been aimed for and achieved [4].

Parliament or the appropriate committee regularly requires documentation or testimony from the military and/or intelligence services regarding the findings of the audit report. It also highlights any shortcomings in the audit process. The foreign, domestic and military intelligence services report to the head of the Federal Chancellery, the Minister of the Interior and the Minister of Defence respectively [1]. In the Auditing Committee of the Budget Committee of the German Bundestag, the audit results of the Federal Audit Office are discussed orally if they have led to comments or reports pursuant to Section 88(2) Federal Budget Code [2]. As a rule, the Auditing Committee of the Budget Committee of the German Bundestag requests the Federal Ministry of Defence, by resolution, to remedy the deficiencies identified by the Federal Audit Office and to report to the latter [3].

Legislators are not provided audit reports on secret items and programmes. Audit reports are only presented by the auditor general for ‘public’ accounts. Military and intelligence services ostensibly do not fall under this definition (1), (2).

The Public Accounts Committee of Parliament (PAC) discusses findings of the Auditor General’s Report, but considering the limited nature of audit reports on the Ghanain military at all, combined with the basic, generalised budgetary approach of the military budget, there is no evidence of legislative debate on audit report contents. The auditor reports are high level and do not necessarily contain enough detail to press the military for responses (1), (2), (3).

Legislators are not provided with audit reports on the security sector and on secret items [1]. They do not have the power to receive such reports from the defence establishment.

This indicator is scored ‘Not Applicable’ as legislators are not provided with audit reports on secret items [1].

Generally speaking, the audit report of the military intelligence service is comprehensive and transparent, it is debated at the competent committees of the parliament. These audit reports are generally comprehensive, but there are certain outlays, the details of which are not presented to even members of the committee. The reason we have heard in several interviews is not to circumvent the parliament, but to ensure the safety and security of the ongoing intel operations [1, 2]. The only audit report publicly available was conducted by the State Audit Office (SAO) and was published in 2014 [3]. The detailed audit process found no major irregularity for the audited period.

The related committees of parliament (Committee on Defence and Law Enforcement and Committee on National Security) discuss the audit reports of the annual account of the whole state budget that includes the expenditures of the relevant organizations [1, 2]. In undertaking its tasks, the committee requests information and testimony. The parliament, and particularly the Committee on National Defence and Committee on National Security are generally effective in exercising this mandate of scrutiny [3].

The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has audit jurisdiction that encompasses all ministries [1]. Article 150 of the constitutional provisions of CAG states:

“The accounts of the Union and of the States shall be kept in such form as the President may, on the advice of the Comptroller and Auditor-General of India, prescribe” [2].

Therefore, CAG may receive some account information from the security sector but not in detail. Intelligence agencies do not come under the ambit of CAG. In 2015, the Centre told the Supreme Court at a PIL hearing that Parliament and the government held substantial control over the functioning of the intelligence agencies and there was no need to make them more accountable and cannot come under the ambit of CAG [3].

A Directorate of Accounts (DACS) was set up in 1963. It was declared as an organised accounts cadre for the intelligence agencies. The monitoring of accounts, with detailed head-wise break up is done on a monthly basis by the DACS. Expenditure is also reviewed by examination of enhancement or reduction proposals at revised estimates stage. This procedure is generally similar to that followed in other government departments with the exception that they remain a secret and are not apparently accessible to legislators or the public. DACS audits the intelligence agencies and not CAG [4]. It is unclear if upon request, legislators can view the accounts. Some information is publicly available on intelligence agencies’ outlays so one can deduce that the Standing Committee on Defence could have access to some information [5].

As mentioned previously, CAG audits the MoD and will have the jurisdiction to scrutinise items but sensitive/secret items are likely concealed.

DACS audits the intelligence agencies. As alluded to earlier, legislators in theory do not have access to their accounts. Executive oversight is vested with the heads of the agencies [1]. Some information is publicly available on intelligence agencies’ outlays so one can deduce that the Standing Committee on Defence could have access to some information [2].

The BPK presents the results of the audit of the central government’s financial report to the DPR at the plenary session in May [1]. The audit report presented is considered very useful for monitoring the budget, in the sense that it helps to overcome the DPR’s limited access to budget details [2,3]. In principle, the audit report reveals indicators to be adopted and discussed, as well as recommendations from the BPK to be followed up by the DPR. When conducting oversight, parliament faces limited access to strategic documents, for example, in the case of the procurement plan. The information available is strictly limited to type of goods, whereas the brand, cost, supplier and tender process is considered to fall under the authority of the government and intelligence agencies. To ensure that the government implements its procurement programme, Commission I formed the Panja Alutsista (working committee on weapon systems) to carry out fieldwork (including factory visits), whose findings are presented in work meetings with the Minister of Defence, Chief of TNI and Chief of each service [2].

Parliament follows up on BPK audit findings by asking the government to report on the implementation of the BPK recommendations. The BPK report examines whether the financial statements of the Ministry of Defence are in accordance with government accounting standards, how effective internal controls are carried out, the disclosure of financial information in the financial statements of the Ministry of Defence compared to government accounting standards and the ministry’s compliance with statutory provisions [1]. In 2017 and 2018, the results of the BPK audit of the Ministry of Defence were ‘Reasonable with Exceptions’ (Wajar Dengan Pengecualian, WDP), which meant there were still problems. The BPK itself stated that the problem was due to the unique financial management system in the Ministry of Defence, in the sense that there were large amounts of money being managed and a high level of complexity, thus requiring systemic improvements [2]. Meanwhile, the BIN received the result ‘Reasonable without Exceptions’ (Wajar Tanpa Pengecualian, WTP) [3]. Although Commission 1 exercised its rights regularly in accordance with the state budgeting cycle, many of the meetings were held ‘closed-door’, which invited criticism from CSOs for ‘maintaining the culture of corruption’ [4]. For example, the meeting on the accountability of government implementation of the law on the 2017 state budget, held on July 11, 2018 between Commission I and the secretary generals of five ministries/bodies (MoD, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Communication and Information, Deputy of BIN and Deputy of BSSN), was held closed-door with no accompanying minutes that can be accessed by public.

A summary of the annual audit report, compiled by the Supreme Audit Court, is presented to Parliament [1]. However, there is no indication that legislators are provided with an audit report on secret items. There are no reports of audits of the Defence Ministry’s expenditure in practice [2]. Nor, is there is any indication of internal audit of secret programmes.

This indicator is marked Not Applicable, as there is no indication that legislators are provided with an audit reports on secret items [1, 2].

Resources made available by Iraq’s COI includes a wide range of reports on the financial activities of ministries and criminal proceedings ranging from minor to major acts of corruption, but none explicitly address the annual accounts of security actors (1). As a former auditor told TI, audit reports when compiled by either the COI or FBSA, are shared with the MoF and CoR, but none have been subject to parliamentary debates (2).

The MoD has its own auditing capabilities and boasts of a range of auditing staff whose responsibility is to monitor the financial activities of security and defence institutions and to file reports when required. An article published on the official MoD website singles out the ‘Directorate of Central Auditing’ as the body bearing the overarching responsibility of auditing, oversight and monitoring of MoD departments, as well as debt collecting. Defence employees, as the article notes, are trained to audit items received by the ministry and to conduct random spot check across its departments.

Further evidence published by the MoD reveals the existence of a ‘Directorate of Military Accounts’ (which consists of 6 divisions) which is “directly linked to the Army Chief of Staff. Since its formation in 2018, it’s been tasked with monitoring spending costs, book-keeping, budgetary planning, and auditing military accounts of state-recognised forces (3).

In the absence of audit findings for parliament to discuss, topics that have been debated by parliament, cover conscription, calls for equal salaries for PMF fighters as those received by army soldiers, budgetary allocations, salaries, and border security operations.

In Article 7 of Iraq’s Financial Management Law, there is a contingency reserve, the sum of which is approved in the annual federal budget for “unexpected and unforeseen expenses” (1), this is noted in TI’s 2015 Iraq country assessment (2), the legal authority to vet and approve off-budget funds for defence expenditure. Furthermore, the Law states financial management is delegated to the minister of finance. A government auditor confirmed that off-budget spending is permissible under Iraqi law. Federal budgets from previous years do; however, contain clauses cautioning against extra-budgetary spending in the realm of salary payments. The MoD-issued 2010 Federal Budget offers a case in point. Another source adds that “extra-budgetary spending may also be authorised by the commander-in-chief in the form of presidential decrees” (3).

Only members of the Subcommittee on Intelligence and Secret Services are getting these reports as part of their duty in this subcommittee. These legislators are provided with audit reports on secret items that examine most expenditures. They are exposed to classified projects and programs and supervise the work plans and summary of outgoing work plans (including budget chapters) (1).

Only members of the Subcommittee on Intelligence and Secret Services and sometimes the Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee members are allowed to question findings. This is a result of the classified data that is open only to these members of the parliament. Overall this procedure is not common except the questioning of the head of the department of budgets in the Ministry of Defence which is invited to the knesset very often (1).

Art. 29 of law 124/2007 determines the rules for the elaboration of the annual budget. The budget of the Intelligent Service, as any other budget of the State, is divided in estimate and final budget and it has ordinary and classified expenses for each of the organs composing the Intelligence Service. According to the same article, the budget devoted to classified expenses is adopted exclusively by the Chief of the organ, who every 3 months, and once a year on the entire year, presents a report to the Prime Minister [1]. The final budget for ordinary expenses is controlled by the Court of Auditors and presented to the Parliamentary Committee for the security of the Republic (Comitato parlamentare per la sicurezza della Repubblica) that is entitled to express its opinion on the allocation of resources (Art.32). Every 6 months, an informative note on single budgetary lines “essential for the management of classified expenses” (art. 29 g) [2] is also presented to the commitee.

An audit report on the part of the intelligence service budget is provided to the dedicated parliamentary committee for its scrutiny (art 32 (1) of the law n. 124/2007). General information on confidential items is provided to the Committee by the Prime Minister. According to law 124/2007, the committee is entitled to request documentation or testimony of the security service and military personnel [1]. A very general summary of the meeting is published, with the indication of the order of the day, time of meeting and general information on the course of work [2]. No further information is available on-line on shortcomings with the audit report.

The audit of the accounts for fiscal year 2017 is representative of the way such audit is conducted. The Ministry of Finance received reports of all income and expenditure from all ministries and agencies during the fiscal year 2017 and finalised the accounts for that fiscal year. The accounts were approved by the Cabinet in September 2018 and forwarded to the Board of Audit. [1] The Board of Audit audited the accounts and sent them to the Cabinet in November. The Cabinet approved the accounts on November 20, 2018 and presented them to the Diet on the same day. [2] Several settlement of account documents were appended to the audit report, including those in the 827-page long pdf file “Detailed Items of Income of Settlement of Accounts for Fiscal Year 2017, Report of Expenditures of Each Ministry and Agency for Fiscal Year 2017 …”. [3] Cabinet Secretariat related expenditures are found on pages 99-112 of this file. Although items such as information gathering, national security related expenses and information gathering satellites are listed here, the intelligence services CIRO and the NSS are not explicitly mentioned. Expenditure for PSIA is listed over two pages. Ministry of Defence expenditures are given, but the Defence Intelligence Headquarters is not explicitly mentioned. The most recent “Detailed Items of Income of Settlement of Accounts” document that was accessible at the time of writing of this report was for Fiscal Year 2018. It includes information on the same topics as the document for Fiscal Year 2017, but does not explicitly mention CIRO, NSS or DIH. [4] Information on the amount spent by the DIH, but not by CIRO or NSS, is provided in a document with the final accounts for a selection of agencies for FY 2018 that is found on the website of the Ministry of Finance. [5] (A similar document can be found for each of several earlier years as well.) A former Member of the House of Representatives who has worked with national security affairs said that as MPs don’t have an obligation to keep secrets, audit reports of a topic where much information is secret, such as national security, will seldom contain many details. If there is great public interest in an issue within defence policy, the government may nevertheless be compelled to provide information, but that has not been the case in recent years, he said. [6] Under the Designated State Secrets Law 2013, the head of an agency can classify information belonging to their agency. [7] According to the Diet Law, the head of an agency must give an explanation for denying access to such information to an MP who requests it. If the MP does not accept the reason given, and the Cabinet does not give an explanation for why the secret cannot be released, the MP can, under certain conditions, receive the secret information. [8] Furthermore, if a Committee in the Diet wishes to discuss information that is secret, it may decide to hold a closed meeting. [9] In the annual audit report, the Board of Audit focuses on issues that should be considered in order to make the government administration more effective. The 2017 report does not raise any topics that are under the jurisdiction of the Cabinet Secretariat or PSIA, but it devotes 38 pages to the Ministry of Defence, suggesting ways to reduce expenses. In addition, the report listed several measures implemented by the MOD in response to past suggestions by the Board of Audit. [10] The most recent Board of Audit report that was accessible at the time of writing of this report was for Fiscal Year 2018. It includes information on largely the same topics as the document for Fiscal Year 2017 and presents it over approximately the same page ranges. However, it also discusses measures to improve information technology management by the Cabinet Secretariat, although without discussing secret items. [11] Thus, although the expenditure for CIRO and NSS is not presented explicitly in the accounts discussed above, it is reasonable to believe that expenditures for these agencies are included in other items of expenditure that are listed in the final accounts, some of which deal with intelligence, as is the case with DIH. As described above, the spending by DIH is not presented explicitly in the accounts that the Ministry of Finance sends to the Cabinet, but the Ministry has produced a different overview of the final accounts where the total amount spent by the DIH in a fiscal year is given. Furthermore, it is reasonable to believe that the final accounts of CIRO and NSS are audited. According to article 90 of the Constitution, the “final accounts of the expenditures and revenues of the State shall be audited annually by a Board of Audit.” In addition, the Cabinet Secretariat has stated that the Board of Audit may view classified information in order to do its work. [12]

Whereas the House of Representatives takes leadership when it comes to making the budget, the House of Councillors conducts a more extensive review of the audit reports. [1] The audit of the accounts for fiscal year 2017 is representative (see Q28A). The audit report and the accounts for this year were submitted by the Cabinet to both Houses of the Diet on November 20th. In the House of Councillors, a brief report and question session was held in a plenary session, and thereafter, the report was committed to the Committee on Audit. On the same day, the Minister of Finance gave an explanation of the settlement of accounts, and the Head of the Board of Audit gave an explanation of the audit report, to the committee. [2] Minister of Defence Iwaya attended committee meetings and was prepared to answer questions in April (with the Prime Minister and the whole Cabinet), in May (when the Ministry of Defence and two other agencies were screened) and in June (with the Prime Minister and the whole Cabinet). Later the committee approved the settlement of accounts by majority vote and approved a list of admonitions to the Government as well. Thereafter, the settlement of accounts and admonitions were approved by a plenary session on June 14. With regard to the Ministry of Defence and the intelligence services, the House of Councillors admonished ATLA to improve the maintenance of its database of procurement cost (see Q28A). This is the extent of information given about the audit of the defence accounts in the report of the Committee on Audit meetings for the period from January to June, 2019, during which it screened the audit report of the accounts of the 2017 fiscal year. No admonitions about the intelligence services are mentioned in this report. [3] The accounts of the fiscal year 2017 were submitted to the House of Representatives on November 20th, 2018 and committed to the Committee on Audit and Oversight of Administration on December 7th, 2018. As of December 9, 2019, the accounts had not yet been approved by the committee, and neither had the accounts for 2016. [4] Recent proceedings and reports indicate that House of Representatives committees have checked that the defence sector is properly audited by the Board of Audit but have not been able to take many initiatives of their own to ensure that audit is sufficient. At the nine meetings that the Committee on Audit and Oversight of Administration held between December 6, 2018 and December 9, 2019, defence was discussed once. At that meeting, a high-ranking officer of ATLA answered questions from an MP about concerns the Board of Audit had raised about purchase of military equipment from the US through Foreign Military Sales. [5] In the 25 meetings held by the Security Committee of the House of Representatives between November 8, 2018 and December 9, 2019, the audit of the accounts was discussed once. At that meeting, the Minister of Defence and a high ranking officer of the Board of Audit answered a question about a report requested by the House of Councillors, which was being prepared by the Board, about a Japanese purchase of military equipment from the US by means of Foreign Military Sales. [6]

In a search of the proceedings from the meetings of the relevant committees in the House of Representatives during 2019, the five intelligence organisations presented in Q21A were found to have been mentioned a few times. However, none of these cases dealt with an audit of their accounts. None of these five intelligence organisations were mentioned in the proceedings from the Committee on Audit and Oversight of Administration in 2019. [7] Although the audit of these intelligence organisations was not mentioned in the proceedings searched, it may well have been discussed by Diet committees in closed meetings without being mentioned in openly accessible proceedings (see Q28A). One issue that was raised after the Designated State Secrets Law, under which the head of an agency can classify information that it possesses, was passed in 2013, is whether this would obstruct the audit of some institutions. According to an answer, given in the name of the Prime Minister to a Question to the Minister in the House of Representatives, the law will not prevent the Government from submitting the Board of Audit’s annual audit report to the Diet, as stipulated in Article 90 of the Constitution that it is to do. In addition, according to this answer, the Government “can hardly imagine” situations in which the Board of Audit will be denied access to documents necessary for the audit of the accounts that it is mandated by Article 90 of the Constitution to perform because the documents have been classified specially designated secrets. [8] To conclude, there is a lack of substantial evidence to illustrate that the audit reports of the intelligence services are discussed by the Diet. Any discussion would most probably be in closed meetings.

There is no evidence of any governmental audit reports being subject to parliamentary debates. Whereas the overall forecasted budget is debated and approved by Parliament [1], the defence budget in particular does not receive much scrutiny and the 2018’s budget’s recommendations were to increase the budget for the armed forces [2]. As most of the defence institutions are not audited by the Audit Bureau [3], there is no room for debating defence budgets in Parliament. Moreover, the Ministry of Finance’s latest set of accounts for 2017 did not include defence and security sectors’ expenditures [4], and when defence and security sectors were included in the final reports of 2016 the accounts did not provide a breakdown of the expenditures of security and defence institutions [5]. Parliament received general reports about operations and some expenditure as a formality, but significant operations and procurement was never reported to Parliament [6]. The legislature neither receives audit reports on secret items, in fact, secret programmes are not audited at all.

This sub-indicator has been marked Not Applicable because, as previously explained, Parliament does not receive audited reports of the annual accounts of the security and defence sectors [1, 2, 3], therefore parliamentary debate around security sector expenditure is non-existent. Despite the fact that the final accounts of 2016 included some information on security and defence expenditure, the accounts were not discussed in Parliament. In addition to that, as there is no information provided about defence and security income other than that coming from the central Government, the figures provided to Parliament do not give comprehensive data, which means they do not qualify for a parliamentary debate [4].

The Office of the Auditor-General (OAG) conducts annual in-depth financial audits of all ministries and state corporations including Ministry of Defence (MOD) and National Intelligence Service (NIS). Financial audits are carried out on the basis of risk analysis methods and emphasis is given to performance audits (value for money), forensic audits, and procurement/asset disposal. [1]

It is important to note that OAG annually audits institutions that are linked to the Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS). However, MOD and NIS are not linked to IFMIS. Despite this, MOD and NIS have been audited periodically in the period covered by this index. Audit reports are sent to Parliament for further scrutiny by relevant parliamentary committees namely Public Accounts Committee (PAC). [2] Although PAC is provided with audit reports like the one noted above, at times there is not information, and when its there, most of it is basic, abbreviated and with omissions. [3] Nevertheless, some Audit reports have, for instance flagged major queries on procurement irregularities procurement processes in the NIS. [4]

However, there is limited follow-up from PAC on the concerns raised by OAG. In the past MOD and Intelligence have used legal loopholes such as Section 40 of the Public Audit Act of 2015 (which has now been declared unconstitutional) that allowed the national security institutions to omit and redact areas that ‘may touch on national security as well as shield identities of persons, assets and liabilities’. [4]

There is Parliamentary scrutiny with regard to audit reports of the Ministry of Defence (MOD) and the National Intelligence Service (NIS) [1]. Senior officials, as well as Account officers from MOD, have appeared before the PAC in the reporting period to examine OAG reports on MOD Financial Statements for the years 2014-2015, 2015-2016 and 2016 -2017. [2] However, in all of the three audit reports, the NIS has had ‘no material issues noted during the audit of the financial statement of the service. This may signal weak or the omission of information to oversight institutions.

According to the current legislation, the National Audit Office (NAO) is obliged to audit all financial and administrative activities, and programmes and projects managed by one or more public institution, including the sale of assets, privatisations and concessions [1]. This implies that the NAO is legally entitled to audit secret contracts or programmes within the security and defence sector in Kosovo, including those of the Ministry of Defence. The Office has the right to trace public funds to their final beneficiary [2]. Furthermore, the NAO is obliged to annually carry out a statutory regularity audit of the Government’s Budget Report, and on all Budget Organisations that have directly received a budget in the Annual Budget Law and are required to produce Annual Financial Statements [3]. However, there is no evidence that secret items are covered by these audit reports [4].

No information is available about whether the Kosovo Assembly’s overseeing committee of the Kosovo Security Forces debated and questioned the Ministry of Defence and Kosovo Security Forces regarding on the National Audit Office’s report on the defence sector. That said, the Assembly’s oversight of the Forces was deems insufficient in 2018 and 2019 [1]. It has not been legally determined as to whether the Assembly may be required to take follow-up actions.

Legislators are provided with detailed audit reports that discuss the entirety of defence expenditure but that may be missing key details particularly ones about the reason for a certain purchase, for example (1, 2 and 3). The reports often include vague description lines, and it makes it very hard for a Parliament and a committee that is already submissive to the executive branch to evaluate the impact of the spending. These ministries do not provide impact studies, the officials and an analyst said (4).

In 2018 alone, lawmakers have complained about the Defence Ministry failing to present a final account for the 9.8 billion USD they received in additional funding in 2016 outside of the official budget; details on the payment and delivery timelines for the Eurofighter jets deal they signed in 2015 or proof that they have had the SAB review the contracts before signing them (5); information on a tracked armored vehicle deal they appear to have signed with the Canadian defence contractor at some point in 2013 or later (6); the ownership of one of the lands they occupy, Jeewan (6); and explanation for its desire to buy armored cars Oshkosh, an American defence contractor, in January 2018 (7). They also sometimes do not even reveal if they have used mediators in the deals that they have signed (8), flouting article 2 of Law no. 25 of 1996 for Government financial transactions, which says that every agreement, including arms procurement deals, that cost over 330, 000 USD (which naturally includes most arms deals) must state the names of mediators and any fees paid to them.

Lawmakers often question the military and other security bodies on the findings of these reports but they almost never follow up with punitive actions, an analyst and external auditors said (1, 2, 3 and 4). Legislators don’t usually comment on the quality of the auditory process, but they do ask these institutions to release the information the SAB and the ACA interested in. And these remarks do not appear to be having much effect on the security agencies because they do not respond to them, external auditors said.

Lawmakers only appear to have followed up some cases twice since they were elected in 2016. Adnan Abdel-Samad, the head of Parliament’s budgets committee, who led the charge in a press statement released in January 2017 “conflicting data,” routinely fails to respond completely to all requests for information and misappropriates funds (5).

In 2017, Gomaan al-Harbish, a lawmaker, said he was going to follow up on the investigation into the Eurofighter deal that the Defence Ministry signed in 2015 (6).

In 2016, Parliament followed up on a cargo aircraft deal the military wanted to sign back in 2011 for 450 million USD. They had been questioned about this deal in the past, and announced that the Ministry decided to not sign it, after it realised that it did not need the planes. This shows how delayed MOD responses to Parliament’s concerns are (7).

The Interior Ministry and the KNG get considerably less attention because their operations are smaller, but lawmakers tend to be more aggressive with the issues of the Interior Ministry than they are with the much more powerful Defence Ministry.

The State Audit’s reports on the defence and security sector are available for the committee. [1] Since reports also include secret items, debates take place within the committee. [2]

The Defence, Internal Affairs and Corruption Prevention Committee receives all reports from respective bodies related to defence and security spending. Reports are analysed, and monitoring of the implementation of recommendations takes place. [1] [2] Representatives from the MOD and NBS are invited to report on the implementation of recommendations. [2] The National Security Committee is also audited by the Auditor General staff with security clearance. [3]

According to a former parliamentarian, the National Defence, Interior, and Municipalities Committee was not provided audit reports from the LAF on secret items (1).

This sub-indicator has been marked Not Applicable, as legislators of the parliamentary committee dealing with defence are not provided with audit reports on secret items (1).

There is publicly available information that the National Audit Office reports are provided and that the National Defence Committee members have the right to access all classified information. Since such information is classified, it is not possible to judge its quality from the publicly available sources. However, there is no evidence to suggest that such reports were not detailed enough and that it would not be analysed comprehensively [1, 2,3,4].

According to the Law on the Organisation of the National Defence System and Military Service, ‘decisions on the supply of the Army, procurement of arms and development of the material resources of the national defence system shall, in accordance with the long-term programme for development of the national defence system as approved by the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania, be taken by the Government or an institution authorised’ [1]. Furthermore, the Defence committee considers activity reports from national security authorities and evaluates budget allocations for these institutions [2]. Based on the agenda of Defence Committee (2016), in 2016 there was at least one meeting where the committee members discussed and drafted a decision on the State Audit Report on the Protection of State Borders (there were also meetings to discuss “other topics”, but the detailed content of these meetings is unknown and therefore it is not possible to evaluate what exactly was discussed during these meetings). In 2017, there were several meetings in which cybersecurity in Lithuania as well as acquisitions by the Ministry of Defence were addressed, including one closed meeting with the Audit Committee on those matters [3]. In 2018, the Defence committee worked on the possible undue influence experienced by politicians from businesses and other actors. This investigation was completed and its results presented. The investigation elaborates on the efforts to influence decision-making by Russia and certain businesses [4]. Parliament members that are working in the Defence Committee may request documentation or testimonials from the military regarding audit recommendations and may question the military on findings. However, as noted by Interviewee 7, the release of this information depends on the chairman of the committee and his/her proactivity [5].

Audit reports are not subject to parliamentary debate unless misappropriations are reported by whistleblowers. Intelligence expenses does to appear in the audit report. But, according to anonymous sources, operational staff of the defence intelligence service are required to report detailed expenses of their intelligence gathering activities. This is audited within the intelligence organisation. [1]

There was no official or non-official report which suggests a situation whereby intelligent military services were subject to parlimentary debate [1] As such, this indicator is scored Not Applicable.

The assessor found no evidence that there are regular audits of the annual accounts of the security sector. The Supreme Court and the BVG are the public bodies responsible for overseeing state finances. The BVG has 17 agents and publishes annual reports evaluating the government’s various spending programmes and budgets. But the BVG’s last published report came in 2015 and made no mention of defence spending.¹² The failure to publish any subsequent reports or to address the defence budget by the body supposed to monitor accountants and administrators highlights the lack of transparency relating to defence activities.
As the World Bank points out, the BVG has not specifically reviewed Ministry of Defence accounts, and only an aggregate administrative account is transmitted to the auditor when the annual budget is examined.⁹ ¹⁰
When the IMF, the World Bank and the EU suspended their aid programmes to Mali following reports of the off-budget purchase of a new presidential jet in 2014, it was the BVG that audited the account (see Q16C). Although the BVG never received access to the plane’s operating contract, it published its report concerning the purchase in October 2014, seven months after news of the scandal first broke [8]. The BVG determined that the former Minister of Defence, Soumeylou Boubeye Maïga, and the Minister of the Economy incorrectly interpreted a legal clause that allows for certain acquisitions to be off-budget.⁸
In addition to the presidential jet, which grabbed all the headlines, the audit also looked at the purchasing of equipment for the armed forces. The report found that 18.59 billion CFA went towards the presidential jet, while a further 69.18 billion CFA was spent on other military equipment, primarily transport vehicles.7,8 The BVG found that the MDAC had failed to respect the 2014 Finance Law requiring it to register these contracts. Moreover, many of the contracts were found to be heavily overpriced.¹¹
– Lorries that can transport up to 5 tonnes of goods that normally cost 28.5 million CFA were priced at 78 million CFA under the contract.
– Lorries that can transport up to 10 tonnes that normally cost 34 million CFA were priced at 115 million CFA.
– Petrol-tankers that can carry up to 6 cubic metres of fuel, normally costing 29 million CFA were billed at 120 million CFA.
– And petrol-tankers that can carry up to 18 cubic metres of fuel, normally worth 38.5 million CFA were billed at 210 million CFA.¹¹
In this exceptional case, legislators were provided with a thorough and independent audit of secret defence spending. But this is far from the norm.
Indeed, the published budget of the armed and security forces does not include the intelligence service, whose annual spend is kept entirely secret and thus is not subject to auditing.¹ There have been no mentions of intelligence spending in recent annual budgets or defence plans.² ³ ⁴ Neither the BVG nor any other public body has the power to oversee DGSE operations, organisation, budget or activities.⁵
Moreover, the World Bank’s 2013 study notes that the existence of a special account for operations in the country’s “Northern Zone” is a major source of vulnerability.⁹ Parliamentary and administrative oversight of this special account is non-existent. The BVG has not audited this secret account. The account has no de facto spending ceiling, the purpose and operating conditions of the special account are not adhered to, budget charges display anomalies and lack transparency, and the controls performed on expenditures from the special account are less rigorous than the country’s normal budget procedures.⁹
Even these do not always function as they should. For instance, in 2016, Mali’s authority for regulating public sector contracts and spending (ARMDS) found that it was wholly unable to audit the Ministry of Defence’s finances for 2014 because of the lack of documents provided by the ministry.⁶

Because legislators are not provided audit reports on secret items, this indicator has been marked Not Applicable.

Legislative debate on the contents of audit reports may be limited or non-existent. As highlighted above, audits of defence spending are exceedingly rare. A 2014 audit report seems to be an exception. In the case of the BVG’s audit of the presidential plane and other military equipment in 2014, the vast majority of parliamentary debate came prior to the publication of the audit. There are numerous media reports that the topic was debated in the National Assembly in May, June and September of 2014, as MPs began to learn details of the scandal.¹ ² ³ ⁴ Opposition leaders pressed government ministers for answers as to how and why so much money had been spent off-budget.¹ ² ³ ⁴ The BVG’s audit was only made publicly available in October 2014, after the majority of the debates in parliament had taken place.⁵ ⁶ In October 2014, the prosecutor general announced it was opening an investigation into the affair.³ However, as of April 2018, nobody has been held accountable and Soumeylou Boubeye Maïga has since returned to government as Prime Minister, illustrating parliament’s limitations in pursuing the matter.
A member of the CDSPC told the assessor that parliament does not typically debate the audits produced by the BVG.⁷ The BVG submits its audits to respective administrative divisions and to the executive. It is then up to the executive to pass it on to public prosecutor if it thinks something is amiss and warrants a judicial investigation.⁷ However, if there is sufficient demand within the National Assembly, as there was in 2014, these audits can be debated.⁷ The assessor found no evidence for debates taking place thereafter.

There is no evidence that legislators receive audit reports about secret items in the budget, and as such, press reports signal that these were auditable, but that the destination of the money was unknown. [1] With respect to this, the legislature decided to eliminate the constutitionally sanctioned secret items in April of 2019. [2] [3]

The debate over audit reports, in general, is minimal. The Surveillance Commission of the Superior Audit of the Chamber Federation (which performs an analysis of the individual and general reports of the ASF) can ask the ordinary commissions for an opinion on specific aspects or contents of said reports. Said analysis may incorporate the suggestions it deems appropriate, and in cases where it detects errors in the reports or deems it necessary to clarify something, it may request pertinent explanations from the ASF as well as the appearance of the Head or other public servants of this entity. [1] [2]

The Commission can make recommendations to the ASF and these should be included in the final report. [3]

The Parliamentary Committee for Security and Defence is provided with and audit reports related to the security sector as part of its annual review of the budget expenditures of defence and intelligence institutions. [1][2][3] However, these documents do not have any information about secret spending, and that information is provided only in one audit report of the Ministry and two audit reports of the intelligence. [4][5][6] These reports do not contain any information about impact evaluation, since it was not conducted. [7]

The Parliamentary Committee for Security and Defence discusses the audit findings, but does not press the military or intelligence services for responses, [1] nor comment on the quality of the audit. [2][3][4][5]

In general, no evidence was found suggesting that the legislature is entitled to receive information on spending on secret items was found (1).

No evidence was found to suggest that the Parliamentary Commission on Foreign Affairs, National Defence, Islamic Affairs and Moroccan Residents Abroad was given access to information on spending on secret items: the only case in which defence-related issues were discussed was the approval of a military cooperation agreement between Morocco and China (2)(3).

Moreover, no evidence was found that audits take place.

This sub-indicator has been marked Not Applicable because, overall, no evidence was found to suggest that legislators are provided with audit reports about secret items or that secret programmes are audited in any way.

No evidence was found to suggest that the Parliamentary Commission on Foreign Affairs, National Defence, Islamic Affairs and Moroccan Residents Abroad was provided with audit reports on secret items or that secret programmes are audited in any way. The only case in which defence-related issues were discussed was the approval of a military cooperation agreement between Morocco and China. (1, 2, 3)

In the absence of audit reports, or due to the difficulty for legislators to access these audit reports, there is no legislative debate on the contents of audit reports concerning the security sector.

The audit reports are not subject to parliamentary debate. It is doubtful that the annual accounts of the security sector are audited at all. The Office of the Auditor General of the Union (OAG) is the supreme audit institution of Myanmar and is accountable to the President (Executive) and Hluttaw (Legislature). The mandate of the OAG includes responsibility for auditing key public-interest entities, state economic enterprises (SEEs), the state-owned insurance company and the state-owned banks. In addition, all expenditures, both capital and current (except defence), are auditable by the OAG. The OAG is not mandated to conduct any audit of the Ministry of Defence [1].

This indicator is marked ‘Not Applicable’ as security sector audit reports are not submitted to Parliament [1]. MP U Khin Cho said that there is nothing relating to the defence sector in the report by the Union Auditor General [2]. According to the Union Auditor General Law, only the military has the authority to audit the defence sector [2]. It is doubtful that the annual accounts of the security sector are audited at all.

Article 7.15 of the Government Accounts Act 2016 states that reports of a confidential nature, such as secret expenditure, may be sent to the States General (the House of Representatives and the Senate) for its information on a confidential basis [1]. However, it is unclear whether this provision refers to budgetary data on secret defence expenditures or, if so, to what degree this information is disaggregated.

This indicator is marked ‘Not Applicable’, given that legislators are not provided with audit reports on secret items, or secret programmes are not audited at all.

In the case of the FADTC and ISC, the Auditor-General comes before the committee and briefs the members on matters of audit compliance [1]. The Secretary of Defence, The Chief of Defence Force as well as the Director-Generals of the Agencies also come before the FADTC and ISC, respectively, and present their annual accounts [2]. Although not present in either example, in the IGIS’ opinion these annual briefings create a fairly standard expenditure examination [3]. The OAG’s briefings are made public. As noted in Q27, elected MPs, including members of the ISC, do not (and are not required to) receive national security clearances in the same manner that public servants or other citizens do. In practice ISC members also have access to all material, regardless of classification, required to fulfil their statutory functions (noting this may exclude specific operational details).

The Minister of Defence, Secretary of Defence, Chief of Defence Force, appear annually before the FADTC. Similarly, the Director-Generals of the NZSIS and GCSB appear before the ISC to present their annual reports. Both committees may call for witnesses and request documentation, although it is understood that the Auditor-General would have undertaken similar measures in preparing their own report [1]. The Auditor-General raises any concerns or matters of interest with the committee members, however the committee does not usually highlight shortcomings of the audit process (or there is no evidence that it does so). It does highlights shortcomings found within the audit process [2, 3].

According to interviewees, no audit of the annual accounts of the intelligence services has been conducted during the last three years by legislators (1,2).
A score of 0 is the most relevant as there is no evidence that audits have ever been conducted.

According to interviewees, no audit of the annual accounts of the intelligence services has been conducted during last three years by parliamentarians (1,2). The reports, should they exist, are not presented to the Security and Defence Commission (Commission de la Défense et de la Sécurité) nor to the National Assembly in general.

It is not clear to what extent members of the legislature are given full information about secret expenditure items. However, a special committee which was created to examine defence procurement between 2007 – 2017 has provided a report with considerable irregularities observed in defence procurement between those dates. The Committee concluded that “in continuation of its assignment, the Committee on Audit of Defence Equipment Procurement (CADEP) in the Nigerian Armed Forces, analysed procurement contracts awarded by or for the Nigerian Army between 2007 and 2015. The Committee so far noted that within the period under review, the sum of N71,775,313,451.30 and $685,349,692.49 were spent on Nigerian Army procurement by the Ministries of Defence, Finance, Foreign Affairs and Environment. Others were NNPC, CBN and the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA)” (1).

Additionally, some state governments, notably Adamawa, Kano and Yobe as well as Federal Ministries of Finance and Power funded Nigerian Army operations with the sum of N114,067,739,113.00. The contributions made by other states such as Borno, Plateau among others were not available at the time of writing this report. Therefore, the total amount spent on procurement and operations within the period under review were N185,843,052,564.30 and $685,349,692.49.” The Committee found that between 2007 and 2008, the Nigerian Army procured some equipment, arms and ammunition that were funded by the NNPC. The contracts were well documented, followed due process and satisfactorily executed. However, the Committee observed that some of the subsequent procurement undertaken by the MOD and Nigerian Army substantially breached provisions of the Public Procurement Act (PPA) 2007″ (1), (2).

There are examples of the legislature criticising the Audit Office for the paucity of its reports. The failure to submit audit reports hinders the effectiveness of parliamentary scrutiny (1), (2).

The State Audit Office (SAO) externally audits all budget users, including the defence and military sector, in accordance with the Law on State Audit [1]. The SAO does not perform audits specifically on the Security and Counter-Intelligence Directorate or on the Directorate for Military Security and Intelligence, but it does carry out general audits on the Ministries of Defence and of the Interior [2]. The SAO does prepare a special audit report when it comes to classified matters, in accordance with Article 29 of the Law on State Audit and the Law on Classified information [3]. However, it was difficult to confirm when and even whether these special audits had even taken place for the defence and security sectors, since no relevant public information could be found. Since 2001, the SAO carried out one audit of the Intelligence Agency [4], and three in the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Defence [5]. In accordance with Article 33 of the State Audit Law, the SAO submits final audit reports to the Parliament in December each year.

Parliament receives audits from the security sector (no information counters this) and, as noted in the 2015 Difi report, all other audit reports are also submitted directly to Parliament. Members of Parliament make decisions based on these State Audit reports [1]. However, there is no information relating to debates within the security sector and no member of this sector has previously been interviewed regarding these audits. It therefore seems (based on minutes from meetings over the last two years) that the Parliamentary Committee on Defence and Security, has not previously debated audits relating to the defence and military sector [2; 3]. Despite the current intention to restore Parliament’s supervisory role, debates on these crucial issues are still lacking.

The Norwegian Intelligence Service is administrated by the Ministry of Defence, and its budget is therefore included in the State Budget. Its accounts and procurements are audited by the Office of the Auditor General on an annual basis [1]. Detailed audit reports are reviewed by the Standing Committee on Scrutiny and Constitutional Affairs [2]. They examine all expenditure, both major and minor [3].

The Standing Committee on Scrutiny and Constitutional Affairs may call the military and intelligence service to hearings for the purpose of obtaining information in regard to the findings of the audit reports [1]. However, the list of hearings since 2015 shows that no such hearing has taken place. [2]. The Standing Committee on Scrutiny and Constitutional Affairs may also highlight any shortcomings in the audit process, but according to the Office of the Auditor General the committee has not yet highlighted any shortcomings [3].

There are no audit reports available for the annual accounts of the security sector, including the military and intelligence services. There is also no information on the auditing of secret programmes or procurement on the Ministry of Defence or the Ministry of Finance websites (1), (2). No information is available on the State Audit Institute website on defence or security auditing (3). As discussed in sub-indicator 27, the severely limited mandate of the legislative bodies of the al-Shura and the al-Dawla equate to a lack of power and access to documents regarding national security (4). According to our resources, the consultative al-Shura has no authority to discuss any military and security issues. Therefore, information on secret spending and secret programmes are not available for institutions outside the sultan’s office (5), (6).

This indicator has been marked Not Applicable because there are no audit reports available for the annual accounts of the security sector, including the military and intelligence services.

Debates held in the al-Shura are made publicly available through reports in state-controlled media, no debates referenced audit reports on secret items or concerning defence generally (1). Moreover, as set out in Royal Decree 86/97, the al-Shura lacks any formal powers to scrutinise or produce draft-laws (2). The lack of parliamentary scrutiny across defence and security sectors is noted in the BTI report, which highlights the al-Shura as an advisory body lacks decision making or scrutiny capacities (3). According to our resources, the consultative al-Shura council has no authority to discuss any military and security issues. Information on secret spending and secret programmes is not available for institutions outside the sultan’s office. Therefore, there is no possibility to have a debate or audit them externally or internally (4), (5).

Parliament has not met since 2007 (1). Therefore, legislators are not provided audit reports on secret items (even before 2007) and are not publicly consulted. Before 2007, the legislative branch used to receive and discuss audit reports. There were numerous meetings (committee) and hearings within the PLC before 2007.

This indicator has been marked Not Applicable because Parliament has not met since 2007 (1). Therefore, legislators are not provided audit reports on secret items and are not publicly consulted.

According to a 2015 COA circular, intelligence and confidential funds are not subject to normal auditing procedures with disbursements submitted in a sealed envelope to the Intelligence and Confidential Fund Audit Unit under the Office of the Chair of the COA [1]. While the grant to funds lies in the hands of the legislature, government agencies that spend these funds (including the Defence Department) are not required to produce receipts or publicly disclose expenses due to their sensitive nature. Whereas agencies that spend intelligence funds send a quarterly report to the President, those that spend confidential funds submit a quarterly report to the President, both leaders of Congress and to the Cabinet secretary concerned [1, 2]. Because the specific usage of these funds is not spelt out, and the COA relies on what the agencies submit to them, the audit reports provided to legislators are not detailed.

The 18th Congress has created a Select Oversight Committee on Intelligence and Confidence Funds, Programmes and Activities to look into the disbursement and use of intelligence and confidential funds given to government agencies [1]. A senate hearing on the proposed increase in intelligence funds for 2020 under the Office of the President (OP) concluded without any questions from the Special Assistant to the President-turned-Senator Christopher Go, who also presided over the meeting [2]. Similarly, during the 2018 budget deliberations, the OP’s budget was approved in three minutes with no questions being asked on how the huge intel funds would be used [3].

The Supreme Audit Office does conduct audits of secret budget items in a frame of annual audits of state budget implementation. This approach includes classified parts of defence budget as well as budgets of military and civilian intelligence services. [1]. The defence budget reports of the Supreme Audit Office are comprehensive but general, with some detailed information on irregularities and recommendations. Classified SAO budgetary reports on the performance of intelligence agencies may be assumed to be of similar quality.
The Sejm defence committee is provided by the SAO report on defence budget implementation and analyse it during open meeting. [2]
The Sejm Committee for Special Services also receives reports from the military and civilian intelligence services and annually evaluates them. The reports are secret, therefore it is difficult to assess their content and the Commission’s evaluation. [3]

Annual audit reports of defence and intelligence budget execution, including annual accounts, are performed by the Supreme Audit Office. The defence audit is unclassified [1], audits of intelligence agencies are classified. Both audits are subject of discussion by their relevant committees (defence and intelligence ones) in meetings designated for discussion of budget implementation [2, 3]. Reviews of both the agenda’s of both committees and the records of the defence committee indicate that the audit recommendations are not the subject of their work in their other meetings [4, 5].

There is no evidence of audit reports being subjected to plenary debate. However, there is evidence that the NDC held hearings of the Oversight Commitee of the Portuguese Republic Intelligence System [1] [2], although the latest hearing was conducted by the Constitutional Affairs Committee [3]. However, there are no records of questions and answers during these hearings. As per Q27, the Oversight Committee of the Portuguese Republic Intelligence System (PRIS) is mandated to conduct two assessments per year, but these are not audits in a technical sense [4], and MPs are not allowed to disclose the contents of the hearings [5]. There is evidence of financial oversight by the Directorate-General on Budgetary Affairs [6]. Classified expenditure by the Security Intelligence Service (SIS) [7] and the Strategic Defence Intelligence Service (SDIS) [8] are exempt from State Audit Institution (SAI) accounts validation. However, there is no publicly available evidence of secret items being discussed in either reports or hearings.

This indicator is marked ‘Not Applicable’, given that Parliament has no access to actual audits, as the PRIS Oversight Committee provides limited evidence of oversight [1], and MPs are not allowed to disclose information on hearings [2]. There is no evidence of Parliament calling military or intelligence services personnel to provide detail on the PRIS Oversight Committee Report.

The defence sector does not go through any audit, either by the State’s Audit Bureau or by the Administrative Control and Transparency Authority, as their mandates prevent them from auditing the defence sector. In addition to that, the legislature in the country does not receive audit reports from other governmental departments. Whilst in theory the Council should approve government budgets, in actuality these approvals have been done by the Emir. [1,2]

This indicator has been marked Not Applicable, because the legislature in the country does not receive audit reports from other governmental departments (see Q28A).

There is no legislative debate on defence budgets, and the legislature does not receive an audit report. Since security and defence sectors are not obligated to be audited, there are no audit reports submitted to the Advisory Council, which is the equivalent of the parliament [1]. It is important to note that the Advisory Council’s elections have been postponed until 2019, which renders the current Council ineffective [2]. Legislative debate on the contents of audit reports is non-existent, as there are no audit reports available for defence and security [3,4].

According to Article 209 of the Russian Budget Code, secret articles of the federal budget are reviewed at closed hearings of the Federal Council Committees, while details of the secret articles are provided solely to the State Duma and Federation Council heads and special committees [1]. Federal Law №77 ‘On Parliamentary Control’ entitles both Committees to question representatives of the executive branch, including the Ministry of Defence, and conduct parliamentary investigation whenever neccessary, including on budget matters [2]. According to Interviewee 2, audit reports of the MoD undergo a full and detailed inspection at the following three institutions. First, reports are checked by the Federal Agency for State Property Management. Second, the MoD itself checks the reports. Finally, the Accounts Chamber scrutinises the reports [3]. Legislators do receive audit reports for scrutiny, though not in full. However, scrutiny does take place.

The State Duma Committee on Defence annually produces reports about its work and these reports traditionally mention their discussions about the defence budget [1]. The reports do not provide any details of the discussions, the resulting feedback or the MoD’s reaction on them. The Federation Council Committee on Defense and Security provides weekly and annual progress reports with a summary of information about matters it has debated [2]. So, for example, the 2018 report briefly mentions that ‘special attention was given to laws on state defence orders, military-industrial policy and budget’ [3]. Comment: there is no debate in the houses of parliament regarding the MoD audit reports. According to Interviewee 2, audit reports of the MoD undergo a full and detailed inspection only at the following three institutions. First, reports are checked by the Federal Agency for State Property Management. Second, the MoD itself checks the reports. Finally, the Accounts Chamber scrutinises the reports [4].

The General Auditing Bureau (GAB) is responsible for auditing the state’s revenues, expenditures and assets, and technically has purview over all ministries and government departments. According to its charter, this includes the auditing of military sector accounts (1). A 2007 report by the Washington-based NGO the International Budget Partnership stated that the GAB has a dedicated department for military sector auditing (2). However, in practice, the GAB has virtually no leverage over security sector agencies, which are directly under the control of the Crown Prince and Minister of Defence Mohammed bin Salman (3), (4). It is highly unlikely that the body is provided with full access to military accounts, let alone military spending on secret items. The GAB does not publish its auditing reports, which it submits directly to the king and the Council of Ministers, the Saudi cabinet which is led by the king (1) and therefore, such reports are not debated. According to our resources, there has been no public or parliamentary debate on security and military reports. As they have no reports or information, they are not able to debate anything (5), (6).

This sub-indicator is marked as Not Applicable because secret programmes are not audited.

The GAB submits its annual report to the king and the Council of Ministers. The report is then referred to the Consultative Council for review and discussion (1), however, it is unlikely that the council or its Committee on Security Affairs have access to any auditing reports relating to the military and security sectors, much less space to debate these accounts in a public forum (2), (3). Through searches of the Consultative Council’s website and session agendas, the researcher found no evidence that military and security sector accounts have ever been addressed. There is no indication or evidence that other government anti-corruption bodies are responsible for inspecting the accounts of the military and intelligence services.

The State Audit Institution (SAI) has not audited annual financial reports of the MoD since 2013 (audit of the financial reports for 2012) [1]. The MoD has submitted some information about the work of its internal audit unit in its quarterly reports to the parliamentary Defence and Internal Affairs Committee (DIAC) – typically information about the units or aspects of the MoD’s that were subject to audit in the reporting period and numbers of recommendations issued by the internal audit [2, 3, 4]. Nonetheless, recordings of the DIAC sessions show that this kind of information was not further discussed [5]. Civilian security service, Security-Information Agency (BIA) was subject to audit by the SAI in 2017 (Financial Report for 2016). In this report, the SAI scrutinised practice of procurement in defence and security (type of contracting where the Public Procurement Law does not get applied at all, which is implemented in confidential manner and could be thus described as secret spending) and found that the BIA had failed to precisely regulate conditions for applying this type of procurement procedures. Several recommendations were offered to amend this issue [6].

The audit report for BIA was published on December 18, 2017, but the Security Services Control Committee has not debated it as of November 13, 2018 [1, 2].

As stated in Q27, members of parliament are not provided with specific details on defence spending [1].

This indicator has been marked Not Applicable because, as stated in Q27, members of parliament are not provided with specific details on defence spending [1].

Audit reports are subjected to scrutiny at both the defence portfolio committee level and tabled at the National Assembly, including secret items [1].

Both the portfolio committee and National Assembly are able to question the military on findings, through the minister of defence and/or the defence secretariat [1]. They regularly question and highlight shortcomings where applicable. [1]

The members of the National Defence Committee and of the Public Administration and Security Committee at the National Assembly can access the audited accounts of the military and the police, respectively. [1] Annual budgets and accounts of the Ministry of Defence and Police are available publicly on the National Assembly’s website with downloadable files. However, legislators are provided with limited reports on secret items. [2] Unlike other government institutions, the National Intelligence Service (NIS) provides very limited information to legislators, who are members of the Intelligence Committee at the National Assembly. As the meeting of the Intelligence Committee is not open to the public, it is difficult to determine to what extent information is shared with legislators. [1] While the first audit findings on NIS were not published publicly, legislators were informed with a brief audit report by the NIS, a chief of staff working for the Intelligence Committee said in an interview. [3]

Due to growing public distrust towards the NIS, the Board of Audit and Inspection of Korea (BAI) conducted an audit of the NIS in 2019, which is the first such audit by the BAI in South Korean history. Although it is required by the law, the NIS had never been audited. [1] The NIS’s budget is called a “security expense”; [안보비], instead of a special activity expense since 2018. [2] Despite the changed budget category, NIS faced criticism as nothing has changed in terms of audit scrutiny. There is no evidence of increased transparency of the NIS’s spending and activities in recent years. Instead, the NIS increased its 2020 budget by 29.6% compared with the previous year, resulting in public distrust. [3] The report on the audit has not been made public and only limited information has been shared with legislators. [1] [4] Audit findings for the military and MND are rarely discussed publicly by legislators. The BAI conducted a two-year inspection of defence purchases of the MND and DAPA, but the full detail of the audit report was not sent to the National Assembly. [5]

Legislators are not provided with the audit reports. [1] Technically, they could request audit reports but it is not assured that they will get them. The reports may not be present or, if available, the bureacracy will stifle their release. The problem is also compounded by the weak knowledge of members of the legislature tasked with defence and security issues, which prevents them from asking the right questions about audits. [2]

Legislators are not provided with the audit reports. [1] Technically, they could request audit reports but it is not assured that they will get them. The reports may not be present or, if available, the bureacracy will stifle their release. The problem is also compounded by the weak knowledge of members of the legislature tasked with defence and security issues, which prevents them from asking the right questions about audits. [2] As such, this indicator is marked ‘Not Applicable’.

There are reports on the budgets of military security and intelligence services, but with a secret character [1, 2]. The Commission on Official Secrets of Parliament receives an annual report from the director of the National Intelligence Centre (CNI). This complies with the provisions of Article 11.4 of Law 10/2002 [3], regulating the CNI, although it is Art. 5.1 that determines the activities of the CNI, as well as its organisation and internal structure, means and procedures, personnel, facilities, databases, and data centres. This includes information sources and the information or data that may lead to knowledge of the above matters. This all constitutes classified information, with the degree of secrecy, in accordance with the provisions of existing legislation for this purpose [4]. The level of detail is not known due to the secret nature of the deliberations of the aforementioned commission.
Moreover, there is a delegate comptroller of the General Intervention of the State Administration who has to develop a permanent financial control, and the CNI must present the annual accounts to the delegate comptroller for their audit. The secretary of state director will send a certification, making available to those reports to the Court of Accounts, through the general comptroller of the state administration [5].

As mentioned in the previous subsection, the law regulates direct parliamentary control through a parliamentary commission. Its composition is supported by the Resolution of the Presidency of the Congress of Deputies of May 11, 2004 [1] on access to the Chamber of Official Secrets, to which powers are attributed to control the application and use of these credits. To this end, it also establishes a special obligation of the ministers who have at their disposal reserved expenses to report periodically to said parliamentary commission. There is no evidence in relation to whether the committee requests documentation or testimony. However, it could be argued that this partially occurs because the heads of those other superior and directive bodies of the General State Administration that is deemed appropriate may be summoned to the meetings of the legislative commission in charge of intelligence [2].

Former President Omar Bashir dissolved Parliament, which formerly had oversight of defence policy by law (pursuant to Article 91 of the Interim National Constitution, 2005 [1]) but not in practice, when he declared a state of national emergency in February 2019 [2]. Since then, no transitional legislature has yet been appointed in Sudan. The 2019 transitional Constitution requires a legislature to be appointed upon the conclusion of peace agreements with armed elements in Darfur and the states of Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile [3]. However, the Juba Agreement of October 2020 led to a resetting of the transitional timeline set forth in the 2019 transitional Constitution [4], and therefore further delays the timeline for electing a legislative body. Since the transitional legislature will be appointed by parties to the Juba Agreement – which inherently include armed groups – it is questionable whether council members appointed by those armed groups will demand audits of secret programme spending.

This indicator is marked Not Applicable. Former President Omar Bashir dissolved Parliament, which formerly had oversight of defence policy by law (pursuant to Article 91 of the Interim National Constitution, 2005 [1]) but not in practice, when he declared a state of national emergency in February 2019 [2]. Since then, no transitional legislature has yet been appointed in Sudan. The 2019 transitional Constitution requires a legislature to be appointed upon the conclusion of peace agreements with armed elements in Darfur and the states of Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile [3]. However, the Juba Agreement of October 2020 led to a resetting of the transitional timeline set forth in the 2019 transitional Constitution [4], and therefore further delays the timeline for electing a legislative body. Since the transitional legislature will be appointed by parties to the Juba Agreement – which inherently include armed groups – it is questionable whether council members appointed by those armed groups will demand audits of secret programme spending.

According to the regulation of annual reporting and budgets [1] and the state auditing law [2] , the National Audit Office (NAO) may review all the items of any government agency and provide legislators in the Defence Committee with detailed audit reports related to the security sector and other secret programmes. NAO reports examine both major and minor expenditures. The Committee then reviews the audits and debates them in parliament. Moreover, as per the regulation with insructions for the Swedish State Inspection for Defence Intelligence [3], the SIUN agency is tasked to ensure that the defence and intelligence agencies adhere to relevant laws, review and investigate any unauthorised activities, issue warnings and recommendations, and report findings to legislators who then discuss them in the Committee and parliament [4].

The Defence Committee [1] convenes regularly to review and follow up on audit reports, and to highlight any potential shortcomings in auditing processes. It also by itself reviews parliamentary decisions, adopted laws, and agency activities. As part of this work, it requires documentation from the military and intelligence services regarding the findings of the audit report [2].

The parliament exercises supervisory control over the government and the Federal Administration (Article 52 of ParlA). The Control Committees (CCs) “exercise supervisory control over the conduct of business in accordance with Article 26” (Article 52 ParlA), the Finance Committees (FCs) are responsible for the financial management of the Confederation (article 50 ParlA). These committees appoint three members as delegates to “supervises activities in the field of state security and the intelligence services and supervises state activities in matters that must be kept secret” (Article 51 and Article 53 ParlA) [1]. The type of access was specifically broadened by parliament to all matters of national security, and the Financial Delegation (FDel) was granted the same level of access as the Control Delegation (CDel) [2, 3]. The delegations then submit reports to the CC and FC (Article 53.4 ParlA) [1]. CDel, FinDel as well as Unabhängige Aufsichtsbehörde des Nachrichtendienstes (AB-ND) can by the constitution not be barred of accessing the information on the basis of classification (Article 169, Swiss Constitution, Article 78.4 NDG) [4, 5] have access to all relevant documents including audit reports. AB-ND is publishing a yearly report on its activities and can publish reports on “focus audit activities” (Schwerpunkte der Prüfungstätigkeit, Article 18 of the order of business of the AB-ND) [5]. Every report produced by AB-ND is also submitted to the GDel [6]. The Swiss Swiss Federal Audit Office oversees and audits all public expenditures done by the federal administration with only a few exceptions. Military procurements are not one of them (Article 8 FKG). The Swiss Federal Audit Office (SFAO) can also review information classified as secret (Article 10 FKG). The office also works closely with the parliament and supports the parliament in its oversight functions (Article 1.1 a KFG). After every audit a report, the documents it is based on and the replies of the audited entities are given to the FinDel and a summary is provided to the Control Committee or the CDel (Article 14.1) [7].

With the adoption of the new Nachrichtendienstgesetz (NDG) in 2015, the oversight system was changed [1]. The Executive Commission of the Federal Assembly (GPK) and Cdel report annually on their oversight function, including the intelligence services. They also oversee AB-ND and cooperatively the planning of the auditing planning for the following year with that body. The annual report also details the type of issues Cdel discussed or requested information and critically reviews shortcomings and insatisfactory responses [2].

Legislators are provided with audit reports on the security sector and secret items according to the “Audit Act” and the “Enforcement Rules of the Audit Act” [1, 2]. Annual Audit Reports of the Ministry of National Defence are also open to the public and can be retrieved in the Archives [3]. For secret budgets, members of LY’s Foreign and National Defence Committee are provided with reports on the secret items that only provide basic or highly selective information [4, 5, 6, 7].

By law, the MND’s annual audit reports are under parliamentary scrutiny of LY’s Foreign and National Defence Committee and CY’s Committee on National Defence and Intelligence Affairs [1, 2, 6].

In practice, in addition to the powers for budget approval and legislation, the LY does not possess meaningful powers of parliamentary scrutiny (e.g. the power to request documentation or testimony from the military and/or intelligence services) for classified budgets concerning defence and security [4, 5, 6, 7].

For parliamentary scrutiny on defence and security sectors, especially classified budgets, members of LY’s Foreign and National Defence Committee are provided with reports on the secret items which only provide basic or highly selective information in closed-door conferences held in the LY in the presence and charge of MND personnel .

The National Assembly does receive audit reports for the defence sector from the CAG on annual basis. [1] [2] [3] However, such reports do not usually contain details of secret items. They are normally provided in hugely general terms for ‘security reasons’.

According to Senior Personnel from the National Assembly, no information is given as far as secret items are concerned. [2] In turn, the parliament hardly comments on the quality of the audit process when it comes to defence sector. [1] [3] [4]

After the 2019 general election, the Thai government’s defence spending has been a major issue that has come under the scrutiny of the opposition in budget-related parliamentary debate. This is because defence spending has risen to 233 billion baht (10.5 billion US dollars) in 2020, a 2.7% increase compared to the previous year, without sufficiently justified reasons [1]. However, according to the Regulations of the Ministry of Defence on Internal Audit 2010, the Ministry of Finance allows the MoD to be subject solely to internal audit conducted by the Office of Internal Audit under the Royal Thai Armed Forces Headquarters. Even though the ministry still has to submit an annual report to the State Audit Office, it is not required to publish the audit reports [2]. Moreover, according to the Regulations of the Prime Minister Officer on Public Secret Budget 2004, the report of the Office of Internal Audit may exclude information about secret items [3]. It is not possible to get clarification on exactly what information legislators receive; in other words, it is clear that there is a lack of information available for public scrutiny.

According to the Regulations of the Ministry of Defence on Internal Audit 2010, the Ministry of Finance allows the MoD to be subject solely to internal audit. Although the ministry still has to submit an annual report to the State Audit Office, it is not required to publish the audit reports publicly [1]. Moreover, the secret budget is reported directly and solely to the Prime Minister [1,2]. Therefore, even though the Thai parliament has a role in scrutinising the military, it lacks access to the audit reports as well as other necessary documents. For example, in 2020, although opposition MPs complained about military personnel interrupting a budget committee meeting to seize all financial documents related to Ministry of Defence spending during the parliamentary review, a spokesman for the Ministry of Defence announced that it was standard procedure for army personnel to take back top secret documents from any government meeting to prevent the leak of sensitive information about arms purchases and acquisitions [3]. Put simply, it is inconclusive whether legislative/committee debate on the contents of audit reports exists or not. As legislators are not provided with audit reports on secret items, this indicator is scored ‘Not Applicable’.

According to our sources, the Parliament did not recieve any reports about the annual accounts and detailed expenses on the intelliegence services or on the army and thus the accounts and expenses were not debated. However, it is thought that they recieve reports from the MoD, but not the intelligence, yet these are also received without debate. (1,2)

According to our sources, the legislative discussion on auditing reports is either very limited or is non-existent. At present the military and security issues are seen as highly confidential and therefore, any debate or discussion (including access to data) is confidental and not open for debate.(1,2,3).

In the few meetings the two security and defence commissions had with the MoD, they did not ask for any audit reports and the issue of integrity or corruption in the defence sector was not discussed (4).

The CoA publishes annual audit reports of the intelligence service and some parts of these reports are publicly available [1]. However, these reports are not very detailed and only provide information about personnel salaries, social security payments and administrative spending. It should be noted that the CoA at least has a tradition of publishing annual audit reports about the intelligence service. Additionally, Interviewee 1 suggests that the CoA audit reports given to the legislature are the same as the content available on open sources, meaning that they provide no greater detail than the open-source ones [2]. He then asserted that the CoA audit reports given to the National Security Council are not any more detailed than the information available to the public [2]. He said that it is only through personal connections that the committee members can obtain information about the audit reports.

Interviewee 1 suggests that a more detailed version of the CoA’s intelligence service audit report is delivered to the Security and Intelligence Committee, but he notes that ‘this is only for their information. The Security and Intelligence Committee has no legislative authority to conduct oversight of these reports. The reports can be a topic of discussion at the committee but these discussions are definitely not important’ [1]. Interviewee 6 suggests that the parliament committees sometimes send written appeals and questions to obtain annual audits of some tenders and contracts, but the Ministry of Defence does not usually respond to these requests, which for Interviewee 6, marks a clear disconnect between the Ministry of Defence and parliament [2].

The auditor general’s reports to Parliament [1, 2] are some of the key reports that Parliament receives for future debate. The other report is the Procurement and Disposal Audit Report for the Ministry of Defence and Veterans Affairs [3]. In an interview with the leader of the opposition [4], she revealed that the committee has been taken over by political patronage. The Report of the Committee on Defence and Internal Affairs on the ministerial policy statements and budget estimates for FY 2018/19 [5] presents some issues, although it does not include secret items.

There are two types of committees in Parliament. Standing committees and sectoral committees. Standing committees last two and half years. They are set up at the start of a new term of Parliament and again after two and a half years. They comprise about 30 members selected by party whips. Standing committees are departmentally related committees, whose composition is determined at the start of each new session [1, 2]. On the other hand, sectoral committees last one session and comprise about 30 members designated by Whips and approved by the House. Independent MPs can apply through the clerk to parliament to serve on committees of their choice [3]. It is under sectoral committee where MPs on the Committee of Defence and Internal Affairs are selected. The audit reports of the annual accounts of the security sector are tabled before the Parliamentary Committee on Defence and Internal Affairs, and the Public Accounts Committee (central government) respectively. These committees have the powers to summon the ministry officials to appear before them and respond to audit reports submitted to Parliament by the auditor general [4, 5]. They have summoned several ministry officials many times and pointed to them the key issues which were observed in the auditor general’s report. According to one MP [6], these people come before these committees not because they want to but because it is a statutory requirement, and to “ensure donors don’t make a lot of noise”.

According to the Budget Code of Ukraine the reports on classified expenditures are preliminarily considered by the VRU Committee on Budget, the Committee on Legislative Support of Law Enforcement, the Committee on Fighting Organized Crime and Corruption, and the Committee on National Security and Defence [1]. Reports on conducted classified expenditures are considered by the VRU in a closed plenary meeting [1]. Сontrol over the receipt and use of funds to the State Budget of Ukraine is carried out by the Accounting Chamber (on behalf of the VRU) [2]. However, control of budget execution by the VRU (the VRU delegates this authority to the Accounting Chamber) covers only some part of security and defence expenditures [3]. The Accounting Chamber is accountable to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and regularly informs on the results of its activities. The results of its activities are considered at the meetings of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Committee on National Security and Defence [4] and in meetings with participation with top officials from MoD, the General Staff and services [5]. The reports of the Accounting Chamber contain comprehensive recommendations [6]. However, there is no evidence for the permanent practice of audit reports` consideration being conducted by the Committee on National Security and Defence [5].

Reports on conducted classified expenditures are considered by the VRU at a closed plenary meeting [1]. Over the past two years, the government has not reported to the VRU on the implementation of its programmes. Although according to the law it should do on an annual basis. However, it was decided that the ministers could report every two years, not when the term came, but when it was convenient for them [2]. However, the minister of defence reported, to the VRU Committee on National Security and Defence (on February 7, 2018), on the procurements (general information) and use of funds and was questioned by the MPs on different issues. They did not touch; however, the issues of audit [3].

There is no evidence of the FNC or any other auditing or reviewing body receiving annual reports about defence expenditure no body receives audit reports on the defence and security sectors. According to a source from the UAE, there has never been a debate on the military expenditure of the country in the FNC or elsewhere (1), (2), (3).

This sub-indicator is marked Not Applicable because there is no evidence of the FNC or any other auditing or reviewing body receiving annual reports about defence expenditure no body receives audit reports on the defence and security sectors. According to a source from the UAE, there has never been a debate on the military expenditure of the country in the FNC or elsewhere (1), (2), (3).

The audit reports of the accounts of the intelligence services are provided to the Chair of the Committee of Public Accounts and to the members of the Intelligence and Security Committee of the Parliament [1, 2]. The House of Commons is presented with a financial statement of the aggregated accounts of the three intelligence agencies, which is audited by the NAO [1]. The audited statement outlines total spending and breaks it down into basic categories such as staff costs and purchases of goods and services [1, 3].

There is no indication to suggest that the Parliament has debated the audited Security and Intelligence Agencies Financial Statement in the past 4 years [1]. The only debates relating to the Single Intelligence Account took place in the context of discussions relating to whether or not SIA should fall under the defence budget or increasing the budget of SIA [2, 3].

The latest Annual Report of the Intelligence and Security Committee of the Parliament states that ‘the Committee continued to monitor the expenditure, administration and policy of the seven organisations it oversees through the quarterly reports it receives from them, and the year end information covering the 2017/18 financial year. Given the Committee’s focus on its specific Inquiries this year, detailed scrutiny of these matters is not included in this Annual Report; however, the key facts and major developments for each organisation are summarised in the Annex’ [4]. Although the ISC ‘takes evidence from the Heads of the intelligence and security Agencies and senior officials from across the UK Intelligence Community’, there is no indication to suggest that it requests documentation or testimony from the military and/or intelligence services specifically regarding the findings of audit reports [5].

There is very little publicly available information on the auditing of the Intelligence Community financial statements in general or the MIP and NIP budgets specifically. Neither the House nor the Senate select committees on intelligence publish reports or summaries of activity, so it is unclear what oversight they conduct of the intelligence audit reports [1,2]. The FY 2014 Intelligence Authorisation Act directed the DNI and Directors of the CIA, DIA, NSA and NGA to undergo full financial audits, beginning with FY 2014 financial statements [3]. The Congressional Research Service did not have any information on the extent to which this requirement was met as of 2016 [4]. It is not clear which auditing body would carry out this work, as the 2014 Intelligence Authorisation Act simply states ‘such audits may be conducted by an internal or external independent accounting or auditing organization’ [3]. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has very limited oversight authority over the Intelligence Community, limited to investigating anything involving the Intelligence Community outside the purview of the intelligence oversight committees [5]. As such, GAO does not, and cannot, audit the Intelligence Community.

This indicator is marked ‘Not Applicable’, as there is no information indicating that either of the two select committees on intelligence, or legislators in general, receive audit reports on secret items and the spending of the Intelligence Community. The annual reports on the activity of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence for 2015-2016 and 2017-2018 do not include the term ‘audit’. The reports include oversight activity and these sections don’t include details relating to budgetary oversight. They note that the ‘vast majority’ of the Committee’s oversight activities must remain classified [1,2].

The last instance of accountability to the National Assembly (AN) was in 2016 [1], with the submission of 2015’s budget implementation. As of 2017, the executive has not submitted public sector financial statements to parliamentary debate and has not rendered accounts for the annual budget implementation. Since 2016, the president has delivered annual reports and accounts to the Supreme Court and the Constituent National Assembly (ANC) [2] – in contravention of article 187 of the constitution [3], which grants the duty of oversight of public administration to the AN.

In addition to the fact that the financial statements have not been submitted to the AN, acts of accountability to the Supreme Court and the ANC have been carried out in a generalised manner, without reporting from each ministry and unit. Moreover, there is no evidence that accountability reports made to these two entities have been published in recent years.

In Ministry of Defence reports and accounts [4] from 2016 and the Vice President’s 2016 report – the Directorate General of Military Counterintelligence (DGCIM) comes under the former body, and the National Bolivarian Intelligence Service (SEBIN) depends on the latter – little information is provided on the achievement of general objectives, on the total budget implemented for the year, and on additional appropriations approved. Documents containing the financial accounts for the defence sector [5] do not provide details of the implementation of the budget allocated to intelligence services.

This indicator is marked ‘Not Applicable’. Given that the defence sector, and the public sector more broadly, does not provide any reports or information to the AN, there are no debates on the official disclosure of financial statements of the defence and security sector.

Although the AN was declared in contempt of court, members have sought to maintain its functions, including political monitoring debates. However, this is acheived by means of informally-collected information and documents produced by civil society organisations [1].

Since the 2016 accountability process, Minister of Defence Vladimir Padrino López has not appeared before the AN, even when summoned in relation to the management of his ministry [2].

Parliament has, in principle, the powers to debate everything which relates to the use of public funds, the official source of public funds and expenditure is the consolidated revenue fund which is under the control of Parliament, both for purposes of authorisation and oversight. However, the military in Zimbabwe, by nature, is murky. The auditor general whose reports are source documents for the Public Accounts Committee is generalised with no aggregated detail due to the failure to provide returns by the Ministry of Defence. There is evidence that officials from the Ministry of Defence from time to time appear before Parliament, but none of the available information indicates disclosure of secret items.

This indicator is marked “Not Applicable,” as legislators are not provided audit reports on secret items and secret programmes are not audited at all.