Article 21 Ex ante controls

In order to prevent errors and irregularities before the authorisation of operations and to mitigate risks of non-achievement of objectives, each operation shall be subject at least to an ex-ante control relating to the operational and financial aspects of the operation, on the basis of a multiannual control strategy which takes risk into account.

The extent in terms of frequency and intensity of the ex-ante controls shall be determined by the authorising officer responsible taking into account the results of prior controls as well as risk-based and cost-effectiveness considerations, on the basis of his/her own risk analysis, In case of doubt, the authorising officer responsible for validating the relevant operations shall, as part of the ex-ante control, request complementary information or perform an on-the-spot control in order to obtain reasonable assurance.

For a given operation, the verification shall be carried out by staff other than those who initiated the operation. The staff who carry out the verification shall not be subordinate to the members of staff who initiated the operation.

Ex ante controls shall comprise the initiation and the verification of an operation.

Initiation and verification of an operation shall be separate functions.

Initiation of an operation shall be understood as all the operations which are preparatory to the adoption of the acts implementing the budget of the PPP body by the authorising officer responsible.

Ex ante controls shall verify the coherence among supporting documents requested and any other information available.

The purpose of the ex ante controls shall be to ascertain that:

For the purpose of controls, a series of similar individual transactions relating to routine expenditure on salaries, pensions, reimbursement of mission expenses and medical expenses may be considered by the authorising officer responsible to constitute a single operation.