A Profile of the Accountability State Authority
.Accountability State Authority (ASA) is the
Supreme Audit Institution of the Arab Republic of Egypt. It is an independent
auditing body with a public legal personality, affiliated to the President of
the Republic and aims to achieve effective control over State funds, funds of
public legal persons and funds of other bodies stipulated by Law. Since its
establishment in 1942, the ASA has continued- through successive landmark
developments- pursuing its audit work, adhering to its national constants,
assisting the Parliament in its oversight duties and perpetually striving to uphold
the values of accountability, transparency and integrity.
The Accountability State Authority, within
the architecture of the State’s institutional system, has complete independence;
at both the technical and financial/administrative levels. At the technical
level, ASA members enjoy all the constitutional and legal powers and safeguards
that guarantee performing their oversight and auditing work without any influence
or interference in their technical work and professional practices. At the
financial/administrative level, the Law states an
independent budget for the ASA, included as a lump sum in the State’s general
budget, and the ASA President has- in discharging its financial affairs- the
powers granted to the Minister of Finance, in addition to the ASA’s
independence in its own administration, formation of its organizational
structure, management of its human resources and handling its employees’
affairs. In this regard, the ASA President has the powers granted to both the Minister
of Administrative Development and the President of the Central Agency for
Organization and Administration. The ASA also undertakes self technical
inspection of its members, monitoring the quality of its work and developing as
well as following up on its Strategic Plan through the ASA’s
Bureau Board and its Central Department for Technical Inspection and
Quality Control.
Within the framework of the First Strategic
Objective of the National Anti-Corruption Strategy- the strategy’s third
edition 2023/2030 has been launched- which is concerned with developing (an
efficient and effective administrative apparatus providing distinguished services
to citizens and investors), the ASA undertakes implementing some of the strategy’s
sub-objectives pertaining to modernizing the legislative and institutional
environment that governs the work of the State’s administrative apparatus, in
addition to complementing the development of the human resources system and
establishing the values of integrity and transparency in government units.
In addition to its accumulated professional
expertise over its long history, the ASA has a resilient and effective
organizational structure, composed of highly experienced audit staff members, of
whom approximately 46% are women and where female members of the ASA hold
leadership positions within this structure. The Accountability State Authority is
headed by H.E. Counsellor Mohamed El-Faisal Youssef, who, after graduating from
the Faculty of Law - Cairo University in 1990, assumed several judicial
positions until being appointed as Vice-President of the Accountability State
Authority in April 2021. He was a member of the National Coordinating Committee
for Combating Corruption.
The ASA continues to move ahead on achieving
various accomplishments at the level of international activities. Besides
hosting and chairing the XXV INCOSAI, it recently won the position of External
Auditor of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO),
in addition to being appointed as External Auditor of the UN Tourism
Organization and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization. The
ASA also holds a permanent seat in the African Union Board of External Auditors
(AU BOEA) where it chaired the Board in 2023-2024.
The ASA is ever committed, now and in the
future, to performing its role in accordance with the Constitution and Law,
with utter integrity, impartiality and objectivity while upholding dynamic and efficacious
goals and missions that enable it to achieve the purpose for which it was
established, upholding the public interest of the Egyptian State and achieving
its aspirations and hopes.