For further understanding of public contract, including its knowledge and spirit of law among international society, the Commission of Audit (CA) particularly invited the Deputy Director of General Affairs Department of Portuguese Court of Auditors, Márcia Vala, to give its staff a course, from 15 to 18 March, on the topic of public contract, which detailed the measures and ways of monitoring the conclusion of public contract, and had an in-depth discussion on the types and features of contracts in different parts of the world. There were 52 participants in this course. Besides CA staff, the relevant staff from the Legislative Assembly, the Legal Affairs Bureau and the Financial Service Bureau were invited to attend the course. Participants from different departments shared the Portuguese experience and practices in public contract together for striving to organize their thoughts and lay down the direction in facilitating and refining the related work, with a view to maintaining the interests of government.

By teaching theories and sharing experience, the auditing course on public contract presented the current situation of public contract monitoring of Portuguese Court of Auditors and its auxiliary departments, and analyzed the specific aim and checklist of pre-monitoring, as well as shared experience of the major illegal cases, which were especially involved in design-build contract and public contracts such as the public-private partnership contract and direct negotiation contract, and the relative monitoring approach. The course also covered the main methods of taking follow-up action and monitoring public contract continuously, and mentioned the legal system and monitoring procedure for increasing or decreasing work after the conclusion of public contract; moreover, the course interpreted the common problem in the management of public contract by analyzing it from the audit perspective, and discussed the financial duty in the area of public contract.

During her stay, Márcia Vala met with the Commissioner of Audit, Ho Weng On, and both sought the feasible option for further promoting the friendly bilateral relations and strengthening the professional capacity of Macau auditor.

CA makes an effort to strengthen the audit team and fully implements the policy objective of promoting good governance with audit work; meanwhile, it further explores topics which conducive to the improvement and reformation of the system through organizing the course with clear training objective. It was a constructive trial for CA as an organizer of the public contract course to share the practices and experiences in audit technique applied to related field with other departments for increasing the staff’s understanding of public contract and its supervision methods.