National Audit Office of Estonia
constitutional institution of Estonia

The National Audit Office of Estonia (Estonian: Riigikontroll) is an independent institution in Estonia, which is responsible for exercising economic control in order to assure the parliament and the public that public assets are used legally and effectively.
History
Formation and disbandment (1918–1940)
The National Audit Office of Estonia was established on 27 December 1918 with a decision by the Estonian Provincial Assembly. Aleksander Oinas became the first Auditor General on January 6, 1919. Due to the ongoing Estonian War of Independence, a military department was formed under the National Audit Office on January 26, 1919, with an agreement between the Auditor General and the Commander of the Estonian Defence Forces. More departments were formed later that year. On February 5, a law was passed, which determined the tasks of the institution. On May 8, A. Oinas became the Minister of the Interior and Aleksander Käsk became the acting Auditor General. On July 1, Karl August Einbund was appointed the Auditor General and led the organization until July 30, 1920, when he also became Minister of the Interior. Peeter Reisik took over the position until he was replaced by Ferdinand Vellner on October 11, 1920. On 22 September 1919 the Audit Board of the National Audit Office approved regulations, which stipulated the areas of focus, structure of the organization, mandate and tasks of the Auditor General, composition of the Audit Board, procedures etc.
The public source identifies “National Audit Office of Estonia” as constitutional institution of Estonia. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around National, Audit and Office.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 25, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q4146854. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1918, 1940, 1919 and 1920.
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This entry incorporates text from “National Audit Office of Estonia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.