The Commissioner of Audit Ho Veng On presented the “Audit Report on the General Account 2019” to the Legislative Assembly today, explaining the situation of the work carried out by the Commission of Audit (CA) after the Financial Bureau submitted all the relevant accounts and information at the end of May this year.
Ho Veng On stated that the total amount of revenue, expenses and assets of the “Integrated Ordinary Account of Macao Special Administrative Region (MSAR)” reached to 140.7 billion, 84.7 billion and 166.8 billion respectively, covering the general revenue of the MSAR, 43 non-autonomous departments, 13 departments with administrative autonomy, four independent accounts and the central account of the Treasury, as well as the management accounts of 13 departments with administrative autonomy and 39 autonomous departments and institutions, with a total of 4.71 million accounting records. The balance of Financial Reserve demonstrated in the note 27 of the Integrated Account was 579.4 billion, involving 1.07 million accounting records.
As to the “Special Institutions’ Aggregated Account”, the total amount of revenue, expenses and assets stood at 29.4 billion, 12.5 billion and 440.8 billion respectively, including 8 special institutions with 1.73 million accounting records. Due to the rapid development of the accounting theories of accrual basis and its practices, and the investment vehicles involved are more complicated and diversified, the workload of auditing the “Special Institutions’ Aggregated Account” and the Financial Reserve has increased every year. Therefore, it is necessary to devote more audit resources.
In order to meet the development needs, CA signed the “Cooperation Memorandum” with the IT Center of China National Audit Office last year for a fully upgrade and modification of the Auditor Office that was developed and operated as early as 2011. From functions setting to the system development, preliminary testing to the training of core construction personnel, trial operation of account data to the examination and acceptance of the system final version, the interconnected work plans were executed in sequential order to ensure that the system can operate correctly under a real environment and with real data. Since the computerization of audit work has been developed in the area of financial auditing, the efficiency and accuracy of the work have been continuously improved.
Ho Veng On pointed out that the 2019 General Account of Macao Special Administrative Region was prepared in accordance with the new Budget Framework Law and its supplementary regulations for the first year, turning a new page in the preparation of the accounts and financial operation of the MSAR Government. Therefore, CA will continue to pay attention to the implementation of the new law and review the content of the Order of Commissioner of Audit. In the current new era of informatization, Macao is also actively developing into a smart city, with the expectation that MSAR Government can keep abreast with the times and improve the information technology in the area of general financial management. In addition, due to COVID-19, CA adjusted the audit work plans from the beginning of this year to the receipt of the accounts in late May for safety reasons. Although the government departments faced time pressure since they needed to catch up with the work progress to make up for the time they lost, they still basically submitted the accounts and related information on time. CA expressed the appreciation in this connection.
Ho Veng On stated that according to the audit result, the 2019 General Account of Macao Special Administrative Region has been prepared in accordance with laws, reflecting, in all material aspects, the execution or operation results of SAR Government in 2019 under the respective adoptive systems, and the financial position as at 31 December 2019. Therefore, the Commissioner of Audit expressed an unqualified opinion on the 2019 General Account of Macao Special Administrative Region.
According to the established procedures, the Commissioner of Audit’s reports, which showed the audit result of the “Integrated Ordinary Account of Macao Special Administrative Region” and the “Special Institutions’ Aggregated Account”, together with two sets of financial statements, formed the “Audit Report on the General Account 2019”. The Audit Report was submitted to the Chief Executive once completed, with copy to the Legislative Assembly, and was presented in the Legislative Assembly. Full text of the Audit Report can be downloaded from CA’s website, and is freely available at CA Office during office hours.
