Compliance Audit of Anti-Corruption Regulations: A Case Study from Carpatistan Customs

The principles and findings from internal government audits (aimed at generating recommendations to improve compliance with anti-corruption regulations) can greatly contribute to the wider anti-corruption literature. Internal audit techniques can overcome the weaknesses of the four predominant approaches to evaluating anti-corruption regulatory performance – the systems design approach, the ad-hoc controls studies approach, the descriptive legal analysis approach and the prescriptive manuals and handbooks approach. This paper discusses a compliance audit of anti-corruption regulations in an anti-corruption audit conducted in 2009. The audit findings and recommendations illustrate the ways that models and previous research in the social sciences can be used in the internal audit methodology in order to generate recommendations which provide risk-adjusted, positive net benefits for the government agency.