The Saeima is the only public institution whose expenditure is not audited by the State Audit Office. The Saeima selects an independent auditing firm each year to audit the Saeima's annual accounts. However, unlike the State Audit Office, this audit does not assess value for money. The lack of such an assessment has been the subject of several exchanges in the Saeima in recent years.
In 2012, the Society for Openness - Delna collected the necessary 10,000 signatures on the portal Manabalss.lv for an initiative to establish a public audit of the Saeima. The then Speaker of the Saeima, Solvita Aboltina, argued that the members of the State Audit Office are approved by the Saeima and it would be a conflict of interest if the State Audit Office audited the Saeima's expenses. The majority of the Saeima at the time rejected this idea.
At the moment, members of the Progressives faction have tabled a proposal to amend the State Audit Office law, calling for the removal of the article that excludes the possibility of auditing the Saeima's expenses. This would increase openness and transparency about the use of state budget funds in the work of the Saeima, the authors of the idea have pointed out.
"We do not see a problem with this and we do not see a conflict of interest, because the State Audit Office will not be evaluating the decisions of the Saeima, which of course it cannot do. We are talking here precisely about the economic use of funds," said Ervins Labanovskis (Progressives), one of the authors of the amendments to the law.
Parliaments abroad have different approaches to audits. In neighboring Lithuania and Estonia, as well as in Poland and Germany, the State Audit Office does it. In Finland and Denmark, for example, the State Audit Office has no such powers.
The former heads of the State Audit Office have supported the introduction of such powers. But the current Auditor General, Edgars Korčagins, in an interview on Latvian Radio's "Krustpunktā" program in April, argued that if the State Audit Office scrutinized the Saeima's expenses, a conflict of interest would arise.
