Mission Summary

The Court of Accounts (TC) was created by Decree-Law No. 7/92, of January 27, 1992, relating to the Organic Law of the Court of Accounts.  Among its main responsibilities are:

1.                   To carry out prior control of the legality and budgetary coverage of acts and contracts that involve expenditures of the State and all its services, autonomous departments, local authorities, and public enterprises;

2.                   To audit the aforementioned entities and evaluate their accounts, if applicable;

3.                   To issue opinions on the General State Account (CGE);

4.                   To control the use of financial resources obtained abroad, namely through loans or grants.

As the supreme audit institution of Guinea-Bissau, it is responsible for controlling the legality and regularity of public revenues and expenditures, good financial management and accounting procedures, and verifying the proper use of credits, funds, and assets managed by public services. It therefore plays an essential role in financial and budgetary control.

Furthermore, in accordance with paragraph c) of article 12 of Decree-Law No. 7/92, of November 27, it is also responsible for evaluating and issuing opinions on the General State Account (CGE). This opinion is part of the mission to assist the National People's Assembly (ANP), which, as the State's budgetary authority, is responsible for controlling the execution of the General State Budget.

Historically, the Court of Accounts of Guinea-Bissau has only issued five opinions on the CGE: two in 2015 (relating to the years 2009 and 2010) and three in 2021 (relating to 2014, 2015 and 2016), which were approved in a plenary session of the ANP on February 22, 2022.

Considering the TC's limited practical experience in preparing these documents, which require high technical and organizational complexity; it is imperative to have the support of consultants with solid and specialized technical knowledge in successive auditing, especially in the area of issuing opinions on the General State Account.

At this moment, the Court is preparing the third wave of opinions, with the aim of catching up on accumulated delays and regularizing the issuance of opinions on the General State Accounts. The Directorate General of Treasury and Public Accounting has already submitted to the TC the accounts for the financial years 2017 to 2022.

Thus, technical assistance should assume a differentiated character, through a training and guiding methodology, focused on the practical capacity building of the TC's task force team. The aim is to promote the empowerment of its technicians, giving them autonomy in the analysis, preparation of maps, and drafting of the opinion chapters. In this way, the technicians will acquire and develop technical skills that will enable them to carry out these tasks independently and continuously in the future.

Within the scope of activities supported by the Economic Governance, Transparency, and Accountability (GETR) project for the Court of Accounts, Expertise-France is recruiting a national expert to contribute to the preparation of an opinion on the general state accounts for the years 2017 to 2022.

The mission will include:

Technical support and monitoring of the work for issuing opinions on the General State Accounts to be developed by the Task Force technicians

Presentation of the "Transparent and Responsible Economic Governance" project

The general objective of the Economic Governance, Transparency, and Accountability (GETR) project, financed by the European Union Delegation in Guinea-Bissau and implemented by Expertise France, is "to promote transparency and accountability in public finances in Guinea-Bissau" for a period of 4 years..

The action aims to "encourage strategic administrative reforms to consolidate the foundations of good public financial management, strengthening budgetary discipline, ensuring that financial resources are allocated efficiently, in accordance with political priorities, and improving the effectiveness and efficiency of public service delivery.

The action also aims to strengthen financial control bodies and procedures, namely by encouraging civil society participation, in order to intensify the fight against corruption.

In accordance with the general objective of this action, the project has two specific objectives:

Table 1. Specific Objectives

The expected results are as follows:

Table 2. Expected Results

The main beneficiary administrations are:

Quadro 3. Beneficiary Administrations

The project is being implemented by a team composed of:

1.                   A coordinator, expert in general and patrimonial accounting;

2.                   An deputy Coordinator ;

3.                   Two resident experts in budgetary management and programming and financial control;

4.                   An administrative and financial manager;

5.                   Short-term experts from the public and private sectors.