Supervision of public procurement: colleagues from Latvia share their experience

Audit and monitoring of public procurement, public-private partnership (PPP) agreements/concession agreements. Specialists from the Accounting Chamber studied the experience of their Latvian colleagues on these matters during an educational visit to Riga. The trip was organized by Component 2 "Public Procurement" of the European Union Technical Assistance Project "Public Finance Management Support Program in Ukraine (EU4PFM)."

During the visit, representatives from the Accounting Chamber, as well as the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the Ministry of Economy, the State Audit Service, and the Antimonopoly Committee, got acquainted with the Latvian system of control and supervision over public procurement, challenges, and ways to solve them. From the Accounting Chamber, participants included Mykola Tovstanovskyi, Deputy Head of the Audit Department for the Defense and Energy Complex, Victoria Hanushchak, Advisor to a Member of the Accounting Chamber, and Vita Yeriemieieva, Chief Specialist of the Department for Judicial Authority and Law Enforcement Control.

The working meeting participants visited, among others, the Innovation Laboratory of the State Chancellery of Latvia, where they learned about approaches to piloting innovative projects in the public sector, discussed measures and conditions necessary to stimulate innovation, as well as practical examples of innovative solutions in the public sector. Also, during the knowledge exchange with Latvia's Supreme Audit Institution, they focused on approaches to financial audit and explored the need to establish criteria for assessing objects of performance audit.

Representatives of Latvia's Central Financial and Contracting Agency (CFCA) briefed their Ukrainian colleagues on public-private partnership projects, describing their own practices of supervision and control mechanisms over projects financed from various sources.

Auditors from the Accounting Chamber familiarized with the experience of implementing infrastructure projects, including the work of a company implementing the Rail Baltic high-speed rail project. Experts from the Supreme Audit Institutions of Latvia and Ukraine discussed issues related to audit and supervision of the project.

It should be noted that the European Union Technical Assistance Project "Public Finance Management Support Program in Ukraine (EU4PFM)" aims to improve public finance management (PFM) in Ukraine and consequently enhance the delivery of public services and the business climate. One of the Project's goals is to strengthen the capacity of external audit in line with international standards. The Accounting Chamber has been cooperating with the Project since February 2024.