Annual survey of Lithuania‘s top-ranking civil servants held by the weekly Veidas acknowledged that the National Audit Office of Lithuania is the most progressive and professional public institution of the year, and the Auditor General Rasa Budbergytė – the second best civil servant in Lithuania.

According to Ms Budbergytė, this appreciation for the National Audit Office proves only once more that public institutions start to understand and appreciate the work of public auditors. “Our constant efforts to become an open and progressive expert body helping public institutions to develop their activities bear the expected results. Increasing numbers of public institutions understand that we seek the same objective: to extract maximum benefit from public funds and other assets to Lithuanian people,“ says the Auditor General. “These achievements would not be possible without  the coherent and competent staff of the National Audit Office, to whom I am very grateful for hard and professional work,“ added Ms Budbergytė. Read more

On 18 of July A delegation of twenty civil servants from the Government Office and some key ministries of Romania will pay a visit to the National Audit Office. The study visit is organised within the framework of the EU Phare Project aiming at strengthening the methods and tools for efficient public policy making. The aim of the visit is to provide the participants with the information and knowledge of strategic planning and budgeting process, state management restructuring currently implemented by the Lithuanian Government, introduction of results orientated management etc. Selection of Lithuania for the study tour was based on the World Bank Report considering our country as a good example from the new EU countries in the field of strategic planning. At the NAOL the Romanian delegation will meet Ms Dainora Venckevičienė, Director, International Relations Department, Mr Mindaugas Macijauskas, Deputy Director, Audit Development Department, and Ms Inga Tarakavičiūtė, Principal auditor, Strategic Planning and Analysis Division, to share information about the activities of the NAOL and issues related to programme budget system.

On 18 of  July representatives of International Monetary Fund Ms Nina Budina, senior economist, and Mr Alvar Kangur, economist, will visit the National Audit Office. During the meeting with Ms Nijolė Mickuvienė, Deputy Auditor General, Mr Mindaugas Macijauskas, Deputy Director, Audit Development Department, and Ms Danguolė Krištopavičienė, Head of Public Accounts Division, the IMF representatives will discuss results of 2008 and 2009 audits of budget and budgetary entities and planned audits for 2009 and 2010. The meeting is organised within the framework of the IMF mission to Lithuania devoted to issues related to economic growth, budgeting process, tax administration, macroeconomic development.

“Public administration in Lithuania is still not balanced, there is no clear distribution of functions of ministries, Country Governors, and municipalities, they are not coordinated or duplicate each other,“ states the National Audit Office having performed performance audit of public administration. Auditor General Rasa Budbergytė says that never-ending reform of public administration system is going on in a nonsystematic way and notes that the reform of Counties governance is the reason for most discussions. She also adds that a model for redistribution of  functions of Counties drafted by the Government will allow to finish the County reform and improve public administration system. However, prior to dissolving County Governors‘ Administrations, it is necessary to rationally redistribute their functions in order to satisfy needs of residents in the best possible way. Read more

Public funds allocated to the development of culture often do not bring the expected benefit, conclusions of the audit conducted by the National Audit Office reveal. In the opinion of Rasa Budbergytė, Auditor General of the NAO, faulty model of financing the culture has to be essentially changed, as it does not ensure the transparent distribution and efficient use of funds. "National Audit Office recommends the Government to initiate the reform of financing system for culture, which would enhance function of cultural policy formation in the Ministry of Culture, and would devolve the function of financing cultural projects to centralized culture support foundation, which should not be administered by the Ministry of Culture," says Ms Budbergytė. Read more

Lithuania does not exploit the full potential of inland waterways, identified the National Audit Office having evaluated the development of inland waterways and their infrastructure in Lithuania. The audit revealed that due to lacking systematic approach towards this type of transport, public institutions lag behind making strategic decisions on long-term development directions in this branch. Therefore passenger and industrial shipping does not take place in Lithuanian rivers, while State investment to upkeeping the waterways in rivers does not render the expected return. In 2005-2008 alone almost LTL 76 million was used for river ways. Currently 98 per cent of all the waterways passengers and 85 per cent of cargo in Lithuania are transferred from Klaipėda to Neringa via the Smiltynė Ferry Terminal. Read more