FUNCTIONS OF THE GENERAL AUDIT FOR THE REPUBLIC

The functions of the GAR, which rule the management and application of institutional resources, have been confirmed in Article 17, of the Decree Law 272 of 2000, as those that correspond to the General auditor of the republic. Among the most important functions for overseeing the management of government funds we can highlight the following:

1. To determine the policies, strategies, plans, programs and projects for the fulfillment of the fiscal management oversight and the adequate administrative functioning of the General Audit of the Republic, based on its administrative, juridical, contractual and budgeting autonomy.

2. To prescribe the methods and the way in which the people under its surveillance have to surrender accounts and determine financial, operational and results assessment criteria, that among other things must be applied while overlooking fiscal management and while evaluating internal fiscal control.

3. To promote pertinent actions to resolve competence conflicts that arise between entities subject to its surveillance.

4. To recommend the General Comptroller of the Republic and the National Government the legal reforms that it believes necessary for the improvement of the fiscal control regime.

5. To solicit with an obligatory character relevant information for the exercise of its functions to entities subject to its surveillance.

6.To present yearly managements reports to the Supreme Court of Justice and the state council.

7. To certify management and results of entities under its surveillance.

8. To promote before the competent authorities, presenting the respective evidence, panal or disciplinary investigations against employees or ex employees of the entities under its surveillance that had caused damage to the state’s wealth.

9. To constitute by itself or by power invested in an attorney, as the representative of the nation´s interests, as a processor subject in the penal processes that are brought forward to employees and ex employees of the entities under its surveillance and employees and ex employees of the General Audit of the Republic.

10. To be the legal representative of the Genaral Audit of the Republic in all subjects inherent to the development of its functions and to subscribe the acts and contracts of the entity.

11.To establish the responsibilities derived from fiscal management, impose proper sanctions, collect the amounts and to exert coactive jurisdiction over its reach.

12. To exert surveillance over fiscal management, in an exceptional form over the accounts of city and district comptrollers without interfering with the control held over these by the state comptrollers, if previously asked by the state, district or city government, any permanent congress commission, half plus one of the members if public territorial organizations or by the people, through the mechanisms of citizen participation established by law. This control shall not be applicable to the comptroller of the Capital District of Santa Fe de Bogota.

13. To adopt necessary policies, plans, programs and strategies for the adequate administrative and financial management of the General Audit of the Republic, while exerting its autonomy.

14. To assign the various dependencies and employees of the General Audit of the Republic the necessary competences and tasks for the fulfillment of the constitutional and legal functions, for which it can form workgroups and dictate necessary internal rules, as well as delegate and disaggregate the functions needed, abiding by valid constitutional and legal dispositions.

15. To authorize expenses, without disservice, to the delegations that it believes convenient for the good performance of the entity, in concordance with the parameters disposed by the Organic Budgeting Statutes.

16. To adopt the entity’s staff in accordance with the budget’s viability expedited by the Treasury and the Ministry of Public Credit, to provide employments obeying career laws, and to distribute global staff employments, form internal workgroups, councils and consulting committees necessary for the fulfillment of the entity’s responsibilities, assigning their tasks.

17. To establish and develop the Internal Control System for the General Audit of the republic in compliance with the constitution and other laws that rule it.

18. To establish policies, plans, methods and procedures for the development of training activities for their employees, coordinate joint programs with entities under their surveillance.

19. To summon periodical reports to the Internal Control consultant about their management results.

20. To designate the employee in charge of disciplinary investigations, in compliance with that established in Law 200 of 1995.

21. Every other function that is not properly listed in this decree and that are inherent to the nature of the position, without harming any delegation present and all those that are assigned by Constitution and Law.