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Combating Bribery and Corruption
THE OFFICE OF THE CONTROLLER & AUDITOR-GENERAL
The Office of Controller and Auditor-General is central in ensuring that the public sector is accountable for their performance. Part of their role is to look closely at the way the public sector uses its money and to report any corrupt use to Parliament.
The Auditor-General has two business units:
- the Office of the Auditor-General
- Audit New Zealand.
The Office of the Auditor-General
The Office of the Auditor-General, sets the standards by which Audit New Zealand undertakes its audits and prepares the yearly reports for Parliament.
The Auditor-General independently reports on whether public organisations are behaving financially appropriately and are giving full and accurate accounts of their activities. The scope of what is classed as a ‘public organisation’ under the Public Audit Act 2001 is very wide, and includes:
- Crown entities
- Departments of the public service
- The New Zealand Police
- Airport & Port companies
- Energy companies
- Arts boards
- Maori Purposes Fund Board
- Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Board
- War Pensions Advisory Board
Full details of the public organisations on which the Auditor-General reports can be found in Schedules 1 and 2 of the Public Audit Act 2001.
The Public Audit Act also gives the Auditor-General significant powers with regard to the access to information, including:
- access at all times to the documents of a public entity
- requiring the production of relevant documents from a person who is not a member, employee of the public entity
- requiring evidence to be given either orally or in writing
- the examination or auditing of the accounts of any person in any bank
- entry into a public entity's premises, or any other premises authorised by a warrant, to carry out a search for a document or examine a document
This extensive array of powers ensures that there is a high degree of transparency surrounding the use of public monies in New Zealand. These transparent arrangements are one of the reasons why New Zealand is consistently seen as having low levels of corruption.
Audit New Zealand carries out the auditing of all types of public sector organisations.
Audit New Zealand is an independent body which enables New Zealand, and those internationally who study corruption, to be confident in the thorough and unbiased investigations of New Zealand’s public sector finances.