The Role of Supreme Audit Institutions in Better Managing Public Sector Assets - Some Evidence From North Macedonia

Abstract

Public Sector Asset Management is a crucial process for the progress of a society, while Supreme Audit Institutions are designated as one of the main stakeholders related to that process. Although PSAM has been the subject of research in recent years, especially by western countries that have established the concept of New Public Management for a long time, there is still a lack of evidence on the meaning and role of public sector auditing for improving that process. The purpose of this paper is to provide empirical evidence on the role of the Supreme Audit Institution in the Republic of North Macedonia for better PSAM, through quantitative research using the survey method, i.e structured questionnaire that was delivered to all public sector auditors who are employed by the Supreme Audit Institution of the Republic of North Macedonia. The obtained results show that the state auditors audit the public sector assets with regularity audits more than with performance audits. State auditors are familiar with INTOSAI's GUID 5260 and according to them SAI alone is not a sufficient PSAM control mechanism. The limitation of the study is the measurement of the variables from the survey that is based only on the perception of the state auditors.