In the beginning (of putting pieces) we should remember Master Hegel: «A random search only corresponds to random results«. From its beginning, the idea or conception of the Public Audit originated in the lack of definition. He encountered the public more for the rhetorical than for the determination of its theoretical and conceptual status. More because of the requirement that public supervision be governed by a fully accepted and reliable tool, than the analysis and construction of its own conceptual and methodological instruments. Basically the discredit and weakness of the public gave way to the conception of the supremacy of the private. Although this initial search was haphazard, as it has become in its development, and now its results are haphazard.
Or have the statements of Rafael Cámara, president of the Institute of Sworn Accounts Censors (ICCJE) not have been unfortunate and uncertain? “The auditors have done and do our work very well. Of the almost 70,000 accounts audit reports that are prepared annually in Spain, we can almost count on the fingers of the hands situations in which the auditor breaches his professional obligations ”(Auditores magazine, number 19, June 2013, p.15). And, Antoni Gómez, president of the Colegio de Censores Jurados de Cuentas, “of the more than 60,000 audit reports that are made in one year (2017), there are only 59 sanctioning filesof the Institute of Accounting and Accounts Auditing (ICAC). And, among those 59 cases that we have mentioned, some are of lack of independence ”(elPeriódico.com, 06/18/2019, bold of the author).
If the breach is counted almost on the fingers of the hands and represents 0.09 (approx.) And of these only some are of lack of independence. Then, why has it been concluded at the VI National Congress of Public Sector Auditing, 2014, “ Delegitimization: loss of confidence we do not know very well how to recover it ”. And, Antoni Gómez, acknowledges “We are in the eye of the hurricane (…) We have less social prestige (…) there has been a significant drop in fees. Who wants to be an auditor now? Nobody wants to be an auditor ”(ibid).
And if nobody wants to be an auditor… isn't it time to look for them?
The best search guide is to look at the present and understand how the past has determined it. Starting off. At the XVII AECA Congress, 2013. Three academics (a researcher from the University of Valencia, Spain and two researchers from the Autonomous University of the State of Mexico) participated with: Financial Scandals and their effect on the credibility of the audit, MJ Jaramillo, MA García, MA Pérez, http://www.aeca1.org/pub/on_line/comunicaciones_xviicongresoaeca/cd/103d.pdf. Where they affirm " the financial scandals reveal the failure of the vigilantes, the auditor."
The foregoing places the auditors on the bench of the accused. And basically it is the same meaning expressed by Manuel Aragón, president of Ernest & Young in Spain, “asking myself, how can Enron fail is how to question why an airplane falls. Human and appreciation errors exist ”(The auditors do not give public evidence of anything, elpaís.com, February 11, 2002). Consequently, deficiencies and weaknesses originate from the auditors, that is, from personal errors.
And recently it has been reported that the audit firm KPMG (one of the Big Four) "will have to pay 50 million dollars and an independent consultant will review the integrity of the controls it applies" (the US fines KPMG for altering audits with stolen data and cheating on analyst exams, ”elpais.com, June 17, 2019). This is absurd, given that the economic sanction is totally insufficient, as well as the integrity review. Was it not enough that the same audit firm has been involved in building deception, accounting farces or omissions in the United Arab Emirates, England, Switzerland, South Africa, among other countries, and continues to put personal errors at the center of the analysis and appeal to integrity and ethics? But this story is similar in other big or non-big audit firms.
And certainly as the three academics affirm in their summary "financial scandals continue to occur today that have led to the auditor's reports and the foundations on which the accounting profession is based being called into question." And if they continue to occur, it is because clarity has been lacking in their flaws and because the principles and foundations of the audit have not been questioned or doubted. Since they expose various positions to restore confidence.
They say, some authors point out that trust can be earned by increasing the risk assessment. Others propose improving the efforts of auditors. And also a real regulation of conflict of interests is demanded. And they conclude in their work "The professional bodies have not rested in designing new techniques for obtaining audit evidence that ensure certain security in the auditors (…) All of the above has tried to clarify in the regulations related to accounting and especially to the audit (…) being the trend adaptable to the international standard; perhaps trying in this way to regain lost trust in the auditor's profession. ” Ultimately, the work of academics does not show or demonstrate that the fundamentals of auditing are questioned.
Yes, it has been more comfortable to place the auditors in the dock. Guilty of succumbing to greed and ambition, violating their independence, their ethical principles and the rules that govern the profession. The vast collection of financial scandals accounts for this, although the dominant paradigm prevents recognizing that the rules that have supported the practice of auditing, whether private or public, have been broken. There is no way back. As a result, it is useless to demarcate the audit and its institutions, such as “the responsibility for the non-avoidance of such conduct cannot be placed on the control institutions” (Antonio López Díaz, Account Counselor for Galicia, magazine Public Audit, number 63, June 2014, p. 7). However, damage control,Minimizing the problem or blaming the auditors only limits the possibility of finding a new path in the audit.
Since its inception, the audit applied in the public field has been determined by the private one. In the scheme that the guidelines of the profession emanate from the "general acceptance" of associations, unions or institutions dedicated to the study of the audit matter. And her teaching in higher education centers or universities has been based on the repetition of "generally accepted" rules. And this has meant, stripping university centers of their essence, criticism and reflection of knowledge. It is not surprising that auditing, to date, is not a discipline. Because "for there to be discipline, there must be the possibility of formulating, of formulating new proposals indefinitely" (Michel Foucault, The order of discourse, Tusquets editores, 1970, p.33). And auditors dedicated to the public field should ask questions,indefinitely, not to find answers but to question established and taught audit rules as truth. And so, perhaps, we find the public audit.
