Operational audit of social security systems: findings of the Court of Accounts of the State of Ceará

Abstract

The national public administration is preceded by being monitored and supervised given the large resources that are allocated to the provision of services that society needs, leaving the courts of accounts to their control and measurement. With regard to the management programs of the private pension systems, the courts began to audit actuarial management and the accounting entries referring to long-term provisions for the payment of retirement and pension benefits. The Federal Court of Auditors presented irregularities and the Court of Auditors of the State of Ceará carried out operational audits related to the municipal regimes, and asked: what were the findings of the operational audit? The answer came through research of an interpretive nature with a qualitative approach and a case study in two municipalities of the six audited. It was concluded that: the municipal social security management in the State is recurrent in the irregularities and vices in the processes of acquisition of goods, products, or services; actuarial estimates are defective and incapable of assessing the sustainability capacity of the social security system, with indications of the absence of adherence tests for the workforce, actuarial cash flow incompatible with future execution, and inconstancy in results; absence of recording mathematical provisions in the balance sheets, originating from actuarial estimates; and absence of projections of actuarial liabilities in the tax statements. The audits studied pointed out recommendations and determinations to managers, which must be monitored by the body with the possibility of sanctioning and returning resources to public coffers.