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History
Ethiopia, situated in the horn of Africa, is the oldest independent country in Africa and one of the oldest independent countries in the world. The history of Ethiopia's supreme audit institution (SAI) goes back to the early 1931 constitution, which stressed the importance of the proper collection of the state revenue and the necessity of procedures to control expenditures but stopped short of either referring to or requiring any audit as such. This, in fact, had to wait for proclamation 69 of 1944, which established the Commission for Audit.
Under this proclamation, the Commission was charged with the audit of the accounts of the Ministry of Finance, whereas the financial transactions of other ministries were inspected and controlled by the Ministry of Finance itself. A Comptroller and Auditor General and a Director General headed the Commission. The Commission reported directly to the Prime Minister.
The Commission for Audit had neither the professional independence of modern day SAJs nor the broad scope of audit covering budgetary organizations of the time. However, the latter shortcoming was corrected after only 2 years when proclamation 69/1944 was amended by proclamation 79/1946. The amended proclamation centralized the audit of all government accounts under one audit department, which was established as the Audit and Control Department, which continued under the leadership of the Comptroller and Auditor General and still reported to the Prime Minister. Although its status, which defined its independence, remained the same, its power and duties were substantially increased.
The Audit and Control Department continued to function until 1952 when it was amalgamated with the Ministry of Finances Control Department without any legislative provision. This proved to be a clear setback in the process of developing an independent national audit institution. But the...