On October 19 of this year, the Parliament of Georgia adopted the draft law initiated by the Government of Georgia on the amendment to the Law of Georgia "On Public Internal Financial Control" (No. 3574-XIIIმს-Xმპ).

The amendment to the law was due to the need to harmonize the internal audit regulatory framework with international best practices. The adopted changes mostly refer to the regulatory norms of internal audit.

The amendments to the law clarified two important areas of internal audit activity: assurance activity and consulting activity. As a result, according to the law in force today, the assurance activity is an objective analysis of the existing audit evidence regarding the governance, risk management and control processes of the institution for the purpose of preparing an independent assessment, and the consulting activity is other similar services related to giving advice, recommendation or support to the object of consultation, including training or/ and facilitation, the content and scope of which is consistent with the objective and which aims to improve the institution's governance, risk management and control processes without the internal auditor assuming managerial responsibility.

The changes specified the internal audit standard that should be used by internal audit entities. In this part, it was clearly emphasized that Georgia's internal audit entities should be guided by the internal audit standards developed by the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) along with the legislation.

The law reflected the issues of internal audit quality assurance and improvement program and internal auditor's continuous professional development. The internal audit quality assurance and improvement program is an assessment of the effectiveness, productivity and compliance with standards of internal audit activities. In terms of continuing professional development, the legislation on the one hand obliges internal auditors to develop their professional capabilities by participating in the offered professional development programs, and on the other hand, imposes the responsibility on institutions to facilitate internal auditors to participate in continuous professional development events.

In addition, it is important to note that the law already regulates the certification of internal auditors, the implementation of which belongs to the competence of the Public Internal Financial Control Department (Central Harmonization Unit) of the Ministry of Finance of Georgia. With this draft law, the responsibility of the Minister of Finance was taken into account and a normative act was issued on the approval of the regulation of the certification program of internal auditors of the public sector. As of today, the mentioned regulation has been implemented and it aims to determine the conditions for admission to the public sector internal auditors certification exam, conducting the exam and evaluation, as well as the conditions for issuing the certificate and the validity, maintenance, suspension and confiscation of the certificate. The regulation explains the structure, content and implementation procedure of the certification program, including such matters as confirmation of work practices by internal auditors, assessment of examination results and appeals. In addition, the regulation clearly defines the competencies of each party involved in the certification process to ensure maximum coordination.