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The control of governmental expenditure is one of the main traits of democratic systems. Similarly, the supreme state audit has been around for centuries, in most European states, which have established mechanisms to ensure accountability for the management of public expenditure, as well as to guarantee their transparency and supervision. Public audit focuses on the formation and use of public funds, being an integral part of good governance. It has a wide range of manifestation, covering all areas of the public sector, each of them being analyzed from at least two perspectives: the financial effort of the public sector to carry out the activities and the impact of these activities that are useful to society. The study of the norms elaborated at international level and the experience of advanced European states offers a comprehensive perspective on public audit from a conceptual point of view within the current European context and helps us highlight the role of audit in restoring public confidence in the quality of the financial reporting system. Moreover, public audit plays a decisive role in increasing efficiency and transparency in the management of public resources and in reducing corruption. The impact of the external public audit activity of the Romanian Court of Accounts on the correct and effective management of public financial resources can be highlighted as a whole, using the data from the audit reports published by the institution.

The quality improvement of state audit system is vital and relevant for all post-Soviet republics and Kazakhstan particularly. On the whole, it is grounded on the old notions, and is not suitable for the contemporary economic situation and numerous private enterprises’ growth. The article aims to highlight the advantages of the audit systems in the USA and the UK for the contemporary state of the audit system in the Republic of Kazakhstan. In order to achieve the stated purpose theoretical bases, statistical data, legislative and regulatory official documents were analyzed. The analysis shows that the most perspective approaches to the internal audit system development are risk management and budget planning. The main problematic areas are the legal support, staff of auditing departments and services, the quality of revisions and competence of state auditors. It is substantiated that training and education for the auditors are highly demanded. The internal annual audit reports can be used as the effective instrument of the governmental control as well as the marker of the most undeveloped spheres.

The external public audit represents the specific activity that the Romanian Court of Accounts (abbreviated RCoA) carries out at the entities that manage financial resources of the state and the public sector, with the aim of providing stakeholders with assurances regarding the management of these resources. Through this investigative approach, we shall give an overview of Romania’s current system of financing the external public audit. The research objectives are threedimensional, and the methodology combines the qualitative and quantitative research and the descriptive-interpretative perspective with the pragmatic research. The first dimension regards the research of the external public audit funding procedure in our country, while the second one focuses on the analysis of trends in financing this activity, based on the data available concerning the annual budgets of the Romanian supreme audit institution. The research horizon is delimited by the period 2015-2019. The third dimension regards the statistical analysis of the correlation between the external public audit funding and its determinants.

The complexity of the public sector generated by the mobilisation and use of significant financial resources, national cultural factors, the heterogeneity of the provision of public services, the numerous interested parties, the increasing demand for the quality of public services, the information asymmetry, require an actor to provide credible assurance regarding the proper management of public financial resources. In this context, performance audits are the link between public sector entities and stakeholders. The research has two components: the first component analyzes the degree of harmonization of the regulations specific to the performance audit in Romania with the International Standards of Supreme Audit Institutions (ISSAI), the second component analyses the degree of transparency of performance audit information by the SAIs of the EU Member States, through their official websites. In this regard, we have resorted to an in-depth longitudinal study, content analysis and disclosure index. The research results highlighted that the Romanian SAI has adopted in its normative framework the foremost ISSAI provisions on performance audit and the harmonization degree has systematically improved correlative with the regulatory revisions. The degree of disclosure for performance audit-specific information by the EU member state SAIs is high.

This paper falls within the category of those about the external public audit in Romania and is intended to be an investigative approach through which we propose to bring in the light of the scientific reflectors certain significant landmarks in the field, starting from the premise that it is a subject of considerable interest from multiple directions. In the described context, the coordinates of the article focus on the topical elements of the approached field and include conceptual delimitations regarding the external public audit, normative approaches in our country, aspects regarding the organization, functioning and management of the supreme audit institution, the presentation of competencies, the field of application for the activities of the Romanian Court of Accounts, as well as its specific attributions related to the external public audit. At the end of the paper, the conclusions on the debated topic are outlined.