On December 9, 2024, the Chairman of the Audit Chamber, Atom Janjughazyan, received the representatives of the Asian Development Bank, the French Development Agency and the RA Ministry of Finance. Atom Janjughazyan, welcoming the guests, thanked them for the interest and support shown in this stage of the Audit Chamber reforms. He emphasized the availability of international experience in the context of overcoming the existing challenges and in that regard presented the main directions of the international cooperation of the Audit Chamber, particularly mentioning the collaboration with Supreme Audit Institutions of the US (Government Accountability Office) and Sweden (National Audit Office), the EU SIGMA program, the UNDP, as well as the processes taking place on the platforms of INTOSAI, EUROSAI and ASOSAI.

During the meeting, the head of the Asian Development Bank project team, chief economist of the financial sector, João Pedro Antunes Fariña Fernández, inquired whether the new Law on the Audit Chamber adopted in 2024 has solved the issue related to the Institution’s mandate and made it in line with international best practices in contrary to the previous regulations.

Atom Janjughazyan presented the key revisions of the new Law on the Audit Chamber related to the following aspects: the mandate, the management model, the human resource management and the involvement of qualified auditors, the access to data for the audit, the follow-up regulations. He emphasized that with the new law has increased the grade of compliance of the RA external public audit legal framework with the fundamental principles and international standards. The chairman also mentioned that according to the new law, in fact, any process related to the public interest can become the subject of an audit. In that context, in particular, the possibilities of Public-Private Partnership (PPP) contracts performance audit in Armenia were also discussed. Mr. Fernandes emphasized the necessity of conducting performance audits regarding the legality and fiscal risk assessment of public-private partnerships and public procurement in Armenia. He particularly singled out the role of performance audits due to the existence of significant risks of public-private partnership transactions, often "invisible" at first glance, and noted that in several EU countries, public focus on public-private partnership has become relevant as a result of the audits carried out by SAIs, which in turn led to public perception of the need to strengthen public and political control over PPP transactions.

João Pedro Antunes Fariña Fernández, emphasizing the role of knowledge and experience exchange in the field of external public accounting, proposed to organize a conference that would provide an opportunity for representatives of various Supreme Auditing Institutions to present the results and approaches of their performance audits, contributing to the reduction of resource consumption in overcoming similar challenges in different countries.

During the meeting, a number of other issues of mutual interest and possible future cooperation due to the reforms of the AC were discussed.