Vietnam improves public audit capability through international cooperation and AI
By Si Ying Thian
The World Bank recently lauded the country for its positive rating for overall debt management, partially attributing it to transparent and effective state auditing.
The Vietnamese government has been leveraging international cooperation to build the country's public audit capability. Image: Canva
Half a world apart, Vietnam and Senegal have been forging an unexpected alliance, aimed at improving public audits.
Last week, their state auditing agencies cemented a partnership through a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to exchange best practices around audits that champion sustainable development, as well as align to international standards and frameworks.
The State Audit Office of Vietnam (SAV) has set up similar collaborations with France, China, India, the UK, and other countries.
Focused areas of international cooperation for the Vietnam included applying artificial intelligence (AI) and big data in auditing, environmental auditing, IT auditing, international auditing, and training programmes.
According to a government release in May, SAV was also engaged in digitalisation efforts, specifically focused on converting its audit records to digital formats (with the aim of building a centralised data warehouse for SAV), integrating AI into its operations.
These initiatives were already showing results. Recent news reports highlighted the World Bank’s positive assessment of Vietnam’s overall debt management in its 2024 report.
A separate release by SAV emphasised that international cooperation and digitalisation would be crucial for improving the transparency and accountability of Vietnam's public financial management.
More transparent audits
The World Bank’s positive rating of Vietnam followed a meeting where the NGO's experts discussed the country's public debt management performance with Deputy Minister of Finance Tran Quoc Phuong.
Effective public debt management relies heavily on robust public audits, as both were essential for accountability, transparency, and sound financial practices. They play a crucial role in ensuring responsible debt management by governments.
The World Bank has attributed Vietnam's achievement to the notable progress made by the government in implementing the Public Debt Management Law in 2017 through internal processes.
The law was intended to improve and tighten the management of public debt in Vietnam.
Last year was a milestone year for SAV, marking the government’s commitment to public and transparent information.
To improve governance and prevent malpractice, the agency actively supported the legislative body with robust audit information, made audit findings accessible to the public, and embraced new avenues for direct accountability and engagement.
For the first time, the Auditor-General answered inquiries before the National Assembly. Additionally, the SAV turned the audit findings and recommendations into an e-book published on its electronic portal.
The agency also held a press conference to explain public financial management, and organised a specialised training for journalists to better understand SAV’s role and functions.
Current AI pilots in public audits
The government’s release in May stated that SAV was piloting the use of AI in audit activities, and would scale it up to other audit areas later.
AI is currently used for mainly analytical purposes, such as identifying unusual transactions within large volumes of unstructured data to analysing patterns and anomalies in transactions.
To push the boundaries of applying AI in auditing, the enterprise sector, represented by PwC Vietnam, highlighted the potential of using AI for more generative purposes.
Within the planning and risk assessment stages, audit agencies could leverage AI to pinpoint critical risks associated with specific processes or audit scopes.
Furthermore, AI could aid auditors in developing suitable work programmes to support their audit procedures.
At an event in May, Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Bùi Hoàng Phương highlighted a critical shift in societal expectations for the auditing sector.
Beyond simply detecting errors, auditors were now expected to provide early warnings of risks, guide policies, and provide management advice.
This required the sector to leverage a combination of multi-dimensional data analysis and predictive models based on AI and machine learning.