HOW CAN GOVERNMENT AUDIT REDUCE CORRUPTION? CASE STUDY OF THE DRAW AUDIT PROGRAM OF MUNICIPALITIES OF THE CONTROLLER GENERAL OF THE UNION

Abstract

The wrongful exercise of authority over the use of public money is a major issue for public governance in many countries. As a tool of public governance, auditing is often directed against public officeholders' corrupt activities and behavior. This paper seeks to advance knowledge about applying auditing for this purpose. It clarifies two broad necessities of auditing-against-corruption: (a) preventing and detecting the corrupt activities and behavior of a target population of public officeholders; and (b) forestalling political pressure against the audit agency's independence in government and/or the professional discretion of its auditing staff. These twin necessities of auditing-against-corruption do not sit easily together, which poses a challenge for audit agency leadership. The paper shows how these characteristic challenges of auditing-against-corruption can be neutralized, through a case study of a nation-wide auditing program of Brazil’s Controller-General Office, where the target population was top local government officeholders. The case analysis can be used as a design precedent for program implementation and organizational leadership in other settings where auditing-against-corruption is the part of the audit agency's strategy.