The Directorate of Control of the Ministry of Transport, Communications and Works is an essential "tool" of the Director General of the Ministry for the primary (mainly preventive but sometimes repressive) control in the Departments of the Ministry, especially in the technical departments namely the Department of Public Works and Department of Electromechanical Services. According to the general principles of management bodies (such as state machine), an integrated financial management and control system includes three levels of control. The primary control, which is conducted by the Directorate of the Ministry, the secondary control, which is conducted by operationally and administratively independent service (the role it has assumed the Internal Audit Service at the request of the European Union) and the tertiary control is the external control and who under the Constitution of the Republic, carried out by the Audit Office.
The Directorate of Control of the Ministry of Transport, Communications and Works was created in 1961, immediately after the creation of the Cyprus Republic, initially as Branch of the Public Works Department. The staff Control Branch was solely with Officers and technicians of the Public Works Department. In 1980, for reasons of independence of a control, the Control Department came under direct to the Director General of the Ministry and in 1983 gradually began posting staff from the Departments of Public Works and Electromechanical Services and later the creation of posts for functional checks. Since 1995, the Audit Division became a Directorate Control the creation and filling of posts for scientific personnel. The Technical Control Division remained detached from the Departments of Public Works and Electromechanical Services.
The role of the Directorate of Control has gradually broadened considerably and activities now cover all areas of enforcement activities of the Ministry Departments. The audit carried out with the participation of the various committees implementation of legislation relating to the award procedures and implementation of public procurement (tender boards, tender evaluation committees, standards committees, project monitoring committees, committees of changes and advances, etc.) are intense, substantial and effective. The presence of the Audit Department on construction sites for technical inspection of the operations and financial control of payments has significant results in ensuring the quality level of works were performed, proper management of public procurement and more generally the implementation of good governance principles and to reinforce and improve procedures . The Directorate of Control also intervenes in cases where ex-post some weaknesses.
With the Council of Ministers Decision no. 61.827 dated 06/04/2005 and the Directorate of control was designated as Intermediate Body Ministry of Transport, Communications and Works Agency for projects co-financed by the European Union Cohesion Fund in the transport sector for the programming period 2004-2006, ie for upgrading nodes Agios Athanasios and Germasogeia (as a single project). For the new programming period 2007-2013, the Audit Division is responsible as the intermediary for related projects and ministries beyond the Ministry of Transport, Communications and Works. Specifically, based on the Decision of the Council of Ministers dated 4/7/2007, the Audit Department assumes as the intermediary for all major projects that may be co-financed by the European Union in the fields of environment, energy and transport and other assistance transport for all 'large infrastructure projects. " Such projects are the Palace of Culture, the treatment works and disposal of hazardous wastes, renewable energy projects, the upgrading of the Limassol port, the public transport system, projects for water management, sewerage systems in communities etc. The new tasks assigned to the Department of Audit in volume and responsibility very large and have increased the range of activities and responsibilities. It is also important that the Audit Department has undertaken duties on specialist areas (environment and energy) with which previously was not involved.