The Commissioner of Audit, Ho Veng On, led a delegation to participate in the 8th General Assembly of the Organization of the Supreme Audit Institutions of the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries (OISC/CPLP), held in Brasilia, Brazil, from 16 to 19 September. The Commission of Audit of Macau (CA) participated as an observer.

The theme of this year’s General Assembly was “The Contribution of Governance for Improving Public Administration and National Development”. Ho Veng On and the leaders of the Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) from the eight Portuguese speaking countries delivered speeches on the theme, based on the specific conditions of the respective countries and regions, debated perspectives and shared experiences.

In his speech, Ho Veng On pointed out that, in response to the increasingly complex and globalized environment, audit work helps promote sound regulatory systems and procedures, gather public opinion, maintain and uphold social fairness, which are conducive to good public governance. Ho Veng On emphasized that in order to build up good public governance, civil servants not only must be skilful in management and upholding high ethical standards, but they also have to understand people’s feelings, respect their opinions and know how to communicate with them and gaining their trust when formulating, promoting and executing public policies. Ho Veng On further reiterated that, in view of the current challenges faced by government audit, CA will continue firm and rigorous in monitoring the management of public resources and demanding the public departments and agencies being more transparent, accountable, efficient and aware of their social responsibility in promoting good governance and a sustainable development for the Macau SAR.

After thorough discussion, the participants unanimously adopted the “Brasilia Declaration” as the outcome document of the General Assembly. The four conclusions in Ho’s speech were all incorporated into the core content of the “Declaration”. The four conclusions underlined: SAIs have the mission of stimulating good governance as means to improve public administration toward achieving sustainable development; promoting good governance through audit faces enormous challenges, technically, in sustainability and structurally, and it may also need to expand the mandate of the SAIs, empowering them to conduct independent external oversight of public departments in accordance with the standards on good governance issued by International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI); the principles of good governance recommended by INTOSAI, which partially derived from those advocated by the United Nations over decades, advocate a public administration that is efficient, transparent, accountable, abiding the rule of law, participative and responsive to the citizens’ needs, striving for a balanced and sustained development including economic, financial, social and environmental aspects; the new conceptual framework of good governance bestows greater importance and responsibilities on the supreme audit institutions in safeguarding people’s well-being through government audit, so in-depth debates and exchange experience should be intensified in future events organized by OISC/CPLP.

SAIs of Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal, Sao Tome and Principe and East Timor took part in the meeting. The 9th General Assembly of OISC/CPLP will take place in 2016 in Angola.