The Audit Chamber of Armenia is an independent agency of the government of Armenia which has separate powers and responsibilities.
History
After independence, a state financial and economic system was required that was able to sustain the benefits to both state and society under the conditions of a liberal economy. Meanwhile, it was necessary to create a new legislative field to determine the financial control principles and approaches. One such institution was the Control Chamber of Armenia National Assembly; a new system of state financial control. This external state control performing structure was founded on May 29, 1996. The founder president of Control Chamber was D.Sc., professor Ashot Tavadyan. A few main objectives of Control Chamber were to exercise comprehensive and professional control over the effective spending of state revenues and funds ensuring transparency of their usage. The next major function of the Control Chamber was the analyzes of presented reports. The Control Chamber of Armenia was formed by the National Assembly and was accountable to the country's legislative body. The Chamber was submitting to the National Assembly semiannual references, control progress reports, annual plans and reports of the Chamber's activities, thus making its study results public. The principles of the RA NA Control Chamber activity were those of independence, collegiality and publicity. It was performing its activities on its own, independently from the bodies of power being guided by the principles of the Lima declaration, as well as by those of INTOSAI (International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions). Control Chamber's first steps were directed towards the determination of its structural-functional divisions, professional departments and fields of activity. According to the Charter approved by the National Assembly, State Budget, Privatisation and Denationalisation; Foreign Loans and Credits; the Comprehensive-Analytical and Informational-Methodological were operating within the Chamber of Control. Later with the amendments to the Charter, the number of Control Chamber departments was increased by one with the addition of the Department of Control Over Community Budgets. During 2002–2007 a number of important events took place in the Control Chamber: 54.6% of the expenditure part of the RA state budget started to be controlled, instead of the previous 20%, the CoC performed joint audits with the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation, the Control Chamber became a member of the INTOSAI Working Group on Environmental Auditing. As a result of this cooperation 10 standards of external state sphere control, as well as financial and industrial control manuals, were developed. During the same years a new INTRANET system of document circulation management and computer information system was installed. Since 2007, the Control Chamber issues, every quarter, an official handbook containing their reports and conclusions illustrating the progress of all work undertaken. As a result of the Constitutional changes, there was necessity to bring in a new law on "RA Control Chamber". On December 25, 2006, the National Assembly adopted a new law on the Chamber (ratified on June 9, 2007) and came into force from the tenth day succeeding the coming into effect of the Constitution's 83.4 article. The RA Control Chamber, which is the legal successor of the RA NA Control Chamber, in comparison with the previous one, has a number of distinctive features which relate to the state, functions and authority of the Chamber: under the new legislation, the CoC chairman is being appointed by the NA upon the proposal of the RA president for a six-year term and the CoC Council, besides the chairman and the deputy, consists of a further 5 members. If previously the National Assembly was approving the CoC annual plan and report, under the new law the NA takes notice of the report on annual activity, and approves the plan, like in the previous case. On the basis of the new legal requirements, structural changes have been made in the Chamber: The departments have been reformed on a functional basis and a number of new divisions have been added ( e.g. the department of internal control). Such working dynamics does not rule out the possibility of future CoC structural changes.