Information Technology and its use at TCE-MG

Transcription

1 Information Technology and its use at TCE-MG Sebastião CASTRO Minas Gerais Court of Auditors. Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais , Brasil Armando GRANDIOSO Minas Gerais Court of Auditors. Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais , Brasil ABSTRACT This work consists of showing the advantages that Technological Innovation brought to TCE-MG, Minas Gerais Court of Auditors, agency of external control that manages public resources of Minas Gerais State. Monitoring public resources is not an easy task. In order to give a quality service to society and to fulfill with its legal obligation with efficiency, TCE-MG created in its organizational structure, the Information Technology Department (ITD). ITD provides information technology support to the TCE-MG in the form of managing the local network area, maintaining and operating a management information system, providing microcomputer support, and extracting and manipulating automated information for audits. Many of TCE-MG accomplishments such as conducting audit of public agencies accounts with veracity, efficiency and timely as well as working to increase transparency has been improved through ITD support. The ITD at TCE-MG is always looking forward to new technology that could help fulfilling its obligation with ethics, justice, effectiveness, transparency and social commitment. Keywords: Information Technology, TCE-MG, Audits, SIACE-PCA, Transparency, Government Financial Statements. INTRODUCTION Minas Gerais Court of Auditors (TCE-MG) is an agency that has the role of audit the accounts of public agencies as well as a wide range of other public bodies in Minas Gerais state. Its mission is to make this control with efficiency and responsibility. Its goal is to give assurance over many aspects of public revenue and expenditure such as the truth and fairness of public financial statements; the regularity of the expenditure and the fair use of public resource towards society benefit. The TCE-MG is responsible for analyzing and controlling the revenue and expenditure of 853city councils. In total, TCE-MG has the obligation to monitor and examine public agencies, totalizing the amount of 68 billions of reais; approximately 34 billions of dollars. TCE-MG has been concerned about achieving two goals: 1) To conduct audits of public agencies accounts with veracity, efficiency and timely; 2) To work to increase transparency in public agencies, fighting against corruption and increasing citizens participation. TCE-MG X INFORMATION TECHLOGY DEPARTAMENT In order to improve the accuracy of the information that TCE-MG receives from the public agencies and also to provide society with information and opportunities for participation, TCE-MG has the support from Information Technology Department (ITD) that uses the technology resources to implement TCE-MG external control. The purpose of ITD is to evaluate the system's internal control design and effectiveness. This

2 includes but is not limited to efficiency and security protocols, development processes, and IT governance or oversight. The goal is to evaluate the organization's ability to protect its information assets and properly dispense information to authorized parties and society. ITD also provides technological tools that allow TCE-MG to receive, audit, analyse, put information available to citizens. The ITD audit's agenda may be summarized by the following questions: Will the organization's computer systems be available for business at all times when required? (Availability) Will the information in the systems be disclosed only to authorized users? (Confidentiality) Will the information provided by the system always be accurate, reliable, and timely? (Integrity) Will information held by public agencies be provided to society? ((Transparency) SGAP : Management System of Accompaniment of Proceeding. (1992): This system is responsible for controlling all the information that arrives at TCE- MG. It also allows all staff involved to have access to each document course whenever necessary. Figure1: accessing SGAP CONDUCTING AUDITS OF PUBLIC AGENCIES ACCOUNTS WITH VERACITY, EFFICIENCY AND TIMELY The concept of accountability for use of public resources and government authority is the key to all nations governing processes. Government officials entrusted with public resources are responsible for carrying out public functions legally, effectively, efficiently, economically, ethically, and equitably (1). According to the article 76 of the Constitution of Minas Gerais, it is clear the obligation that TCE-MG has to control and monitor public resources with effectiveness, transparency and mainly social commitment. (2). A study made in 2000 by Marinalva Rita Moreira found out that the frequency of irregularities practiced for the public agencies were large because of many aspects. One of them she described as the necessity of adopting new technology procedures to the effectiveness of TCE-MG work (3). ITD along with TCE-MG staff have developed new technologies that have allowed TCE-MG to gain more agility as to receive all the information as well as to analyze and decided about it. The development of two systems: SGAP and SIACE-PCA (4) are examples of ITD contributions. Figure 2: choosing reports SIACE-PCA :Computerized System that supports External Control (2000): This system receives all the statements regarding to Minas Gerais State, its city councils and others public agencies accounts. Figure 3: Accessing SIACE-PCA

3 TCE-MG receives, audits and analyses the data and, if necessary, checks its veracity personally. After implanting new programs, redefining the way to analyze the information regarding to accounts from government departments and public agencies, plus computerizing all data, TCE-MG has gained agility and consequently has worked more satisfactorily in society benefit. The numbers below show the improvements of TCE- MG performance after working along with ID department. Figure 4: budget information ACCOUNT YEAR % AUDITED ACCOUNTS AND OPNIONS MADE IN % (822 city councils ) % (393city councils) Fonte: SGAP / Total of Minas Gerais city halls: 853 INCRESING TRANSPARENCY Figure 5: revenue information Figure 6: receipt It is important to mention that all information sent to TCE-MG by public agencies through SIACE-PCA, are important data which are use to planning TCE- MG local examination. Through data processing, Government that works for its citizens must be open and accountable, use public resources fairly and efficiently, apply the rule of law and provide the public with information and opportunities for participation. Government officials who abuse their power for private gain waste public resources and lose the trust of those they are meant to serve (5). Many countries have passed legislation that recognizes and protects the right to access information held by public bodies. This is an important component in any effort to fight corruption, but the mere existence of legal instruments is not enough. Habits and cultures on both sides of the information demand and supply relationship must be changed. While public bodies change their attitudes of secrecy to a climate of openness to prevent potentially corrupt situations, citizens also need to capture the spirit of demanding information.. (6) In May 2000, in order to prevent that mayors and governors spend more than what they obtain collecting through taxes (balance in public accounts) and also to increasing citizens participation (transparency) Brazilian government approved the

4 Law of Fiscal Responsibility (Lei de Responsabilidade Fiscal- LRF) (7). Business intelligence and information management technology can be an enabler for greater government openness and clarity in communication with citizens. Instead of just dumping an agency s raw data on a web site, the information can be organized and tools provided so that external constituents can more easily analyze it. This kind of open access to information will not only increase the public s trust in government but also facilitate non-government research with the goal of identifying, evaluating and prioritizing different solutions to problems challenging public officials (8). In 27/05/2009, the president of Brazil signed a law named Capeberibe Law (9). According to this law all public agencies have to publish all public accounts (revenue and expenditures) in detailed way in the Internet. Figure 8: information about public resources and its use. The creation of TCE-MG web page and its constants updates were a major step toward transparency in public accounts. In TCE-MG Web site, society and also public agencies monitored by it have all information regarding to TCE-MG giving services. Examining with TCE-MG: Looking forward to work according to Brazilian s Law and always worrying about transparency issue, in 2004 ITD at TCE-MG launched the first version of Examining with TCE-MG which was reformulated in Examining with TCE-MG is an important tool available at TCE-MG web page which allows public to access information regarding to how public agencies are managing public resources. Important information, such as: the revenue and the expenditure in different areas as education and health are easily available to citizens. Examining with TCE-MG also shows if the public agencies are applying the rule of law. Figure 7: Accessing Examining with TCE-MG Figure 9: information about public resources, its use and its conformity with Law and Constitution. (First checking by SIACE-PCA) Figure 10: information about public resources, its use and its conformity with Laws and Constitution. (First checking by SIACE-PCA) In short, TCE-MG receives information from public agencies through SIACE-PCA. Then SIACE-PCA through itself analyses the data and check if it is according to Brazilian s Law and Constitution. After this, through audit techniques, TCE-MG analyses

5 and decided about it. It is important to know that TCE-MG put all information available to society at Examining with TCE-MG, updating the information whenever necessary. Example: Agua Boa INDEX PRESENTED BY MAYOR INDEX CHECKED BY SIACE INDEX AFTER TCE- MG AUDIT EDUCATION 25,86% 22,42% 23,57% HEALTH 16,34% 12,66% 14,42% Legal limits: Education: 25% - Heath: 15% In 2007, the ITD made a research using Google Analytical toll with the purpose of finding out which Web Site area had more access during that year (10). The result of the study is showed below. receives could be exchanged, audited, and analyzed with accuracy, veracity and timely without data processing. SIACE-PCA and SGAP are toll developed by ITD that support TCE-MG achieves its goal. The world nowadays is concerned about transparency in public agency. So, all the benefits achieved by TCE-MG in this field would be harder without technological support. Analyzing with TCE is an example of TCE-MG concerning about the importance of transparency in public accounts. Citizens and taxpayers deserve to receive all the information regarding to where and how their money has been applied. The population also deserves an efficiency set of data that they can trust from the entity responsible for controlling public resources. In this context, the role of TCE-MG gains greater importance, given the need to increase transparency and accountability - which are fundamental democratic values - in order to ensure that public funds are soundly managed on behalf of citizens and taxpayers. Along with ITD, TCE-MG is always looking forward news technology that could help it fulfilling its obligation with ethics, justice, effectiveness, transparency and social commitment. Figure 11: areas accessed According to the results, it is clear that citizens are more concerned about how public resources are been used. General public are also demanding more information, exercising their right of having access to information held by public bodies. TCE-MG seems to be in the right way when it shows its concerns about transparency issue. CONCLUSION The TCE-MG has achieved its goals through Information Technology help. It is impossible to think how all important information that TCE-MG Nowadays, ITD has updating all the systems used by TCE-MG, installing new programs and revising the current ones. The mainly concern now is to develop a system that allows TCE-MG receives data from public agencies in real time and put this information available to society. REFERENCES 1)Comptroller General of the United States, Government Auditing Standards - July ) Minas Gerais. [Constituição (1989)] Constituição do Estado de Minas Gerais. 13. Ed. Belo Horizonte: Assembléia Legislativa do Estado de Minas Gerais, 2010.

6 3) Marinalva, Rita Moreira. Revista do Tribunal de Contas do Estado de Minas Gerais - Edição Nº 02 de Anos XVIII 4) Convênio TCEMG-DCC/UFMG SIACE-PCA : Manual de Instalação e Utilização Tribunal de Contas do Estado de Minas Gerais.Belo Horizonte, Janeiro /2001 5)Heineman, Ben. Restoring Trust in Corporate Governance: The Six Essential Tasks of Boards of Directors and Business Leaders. Policy and Impact Committee of the Committee for Economic Development, January )Riaño,Juanita, Hodess,Robin and Evans, Alastair. The 2009 Global Corruption Barometer. 7)Ministério de Planejamento Orçamento e Gestão.Lei de Responsabilidade Fiscal Manual Básico de Treinamento para Municípios.2ªedição,Brasília )Transparency International. Human Rights and Corruption. Working paper nº5/2008 9)Diário Oficial da União Lei Complementar 131 de 27 de maio de )Projeto Elaborado pelo Departamento de Tecnologia da Informação e o Departamento de Comunicação Social do TCE-MG; Novo Portal TCE-MG- 18/11/2008, Novembro de )Saudagaran, Shahrokh M. International Accounting: A user Perspective. Thomson South Western,2003.