TITLE:
The Significance of Pre-Contractual Audit Carried Out by the Hellenic Court of Auditors
AUTHORS:
Georgia N. Kontogeorga, Georgios L. Thanasas, Dimitrios N. Angelaras
KEYWORDS:
Public Procurements, Pre-Contractual Audit, Supreme Audit Institutions, Greece
JOURNAL NAME:
Theoretical Economics Letters,
Vol.13 No.6,
December
27,
2023
ABSTRACT: Public procurements represent a significant
percentage of GDP in OECD countries and are critical to the delivery of services. However, public procurement can
also provide several opportunities for corruption. Thus, the Hellenic Court of
Audit (HCA) examines the legality and the regularity of public contract’s draft
(ex-ante audit) with significant financial value and only after its “visa” (approval) by the relevant
section of the court, the contract can be signed and come into force. Several
reforms in the public procurement’s legal framework took place these last
years. This paper deals with this issue and presents the first results of these
reforms. Our analysis showed that the pre-contractual audit still remains an
important type of ex-ante audit, by preventing on time the non-legal
disbursement of public money.