Saskia J. Stuiveling rung out with Open Data Award and book
A packed Knights’ Hall bade the Court of Audit’s President, Saskia J. Stuiveling, farewell on 28 May 2015.
The President of the House of Representatives, Anouchka van Miltenburg, and Prime Minister Mark Rutte were just two of the guests to praise Ms Stuiveling. Mr Rutte surprised the departing President by announcing the introduction of the annual Stuiveling Open Data Award. The first will be presented in 2016.
In her typically dry tones, Ms Stuiveling responded with a number of home truths. She described her Presidency of the Court of Audit during the past 16 years as ‘one of the few positions in which laziness is so tempting; it’s the only way not to offend anyone’. By definition, the Court of Audit’s message is critical and that unlocks ‘damage limitation reflexes' among ministers. The well-travelled Ms Stuiveling is aware that this is the same all over the world. The messenger is attacked: the audit is out of date or too early, too vague or too detailed, is taken out of context or is not specific enough. ‘These are popular rituals that we have to endure until the first wave of publicity has ebbed away.’ Ms Stuiveling quoted the inaugural lecture of Professor Javier Couso, who argued last week when he was awarded the Prince Claus Chair in Utrecht that a parliamentary democracy needed an independent judiciary and an independent press. ‘And I would add to that, an independent audit institution. Democracy cannot function properly unless it is able to express its opinions freely. It’s a bedrock for members of parliament and journalists.’
Ms Stuiveling therefore described the praise she received as a compliment for the quality of parliamentary democracy in the Netherlands.
Board member Arno Visser offered the departing President a book especially commissioned for the occasion: The Art of Audit (published by Amsterdam University Press). Eight Presidents of supreme audit institutions from all over the world explained to publicist Roel Janssen how the supreme audit institution in their countries presented the government with critical audits. The interviews range from the differences in the SAI of Tunisia before and after the Jasmine Revolution and the reinvention of a modern audit institution in Estonia flowing the collapse of the Soviet Union to the security measures taken to protect the Iraqi auditors running their institution in war conditions.