Representatives of the Central Election Commission, Institute of Authorized Chartered Accountants, auditors and financial experts, Civil Society Organisations, NDI and Council of Europe expert discussed proposals for an improved oversight of political party finances at a Roundtable on “CEC instructions on Monitoring and Auditing of political party and election campaign finances” organised in Tirana on 28 March 2019.

The purpose of this Roundtable was to provide recommendations and guidance to the Central Election Commission on drafting the necessary instructions on monitoring and auditing of political party and election campaign finances by financial experts and auditors. A Council of Europe expert presented a Technical Paper on “Proposed framework for monitoring and auditing of election campaign finance in Albania” providing recommendations for the content of CEC instructions on monitoring and auditing of campaign finance, and specifically on the coordination of monitoring and auditing of campaign finance by CEC-appointed financial experts and auditors. The Roundtable served as a venue for discussions and proposals on the content of monitoring reports and consolidated findings of monitoring and audit.

Following this event, the Central Election Commission is expected to approve an instruction on the role of financial experts and auditors on monitoring and auditing of political party and election campaign finances and audit template which will provide a framework to guide them in the collection of and reporting of information on the election campaign and auditing of political party finances.

This Roundtable was organized under the auspices of the EU/CoE Horizontal Facility for Western Balkans and Turkey “Action against Economic Crime in Albania (AEC-AL) pursuant to a request made by the Central Election Commission.