Khaberni - The 2024 Audit Bureau report recorded a financial saving of 22.3 million dinar, resulted from a total of 123,369 oversight tasks, accomplished over 444,766 working hours by 294 auditors, distributed across 49% for subsequent auditing, 24% for follow-up, 15% for participation in committees, 9% for prior auditing, and 3% for surprise inspections, according to the report.
Razi Al-Hamadin, the President of the Audit Bureau, said on Tuesday during press statements, that the Bureau completed 11,050 technical engineering oversight tasks executed by 38 engineers. The 73rd annual report of the Bureau for the fiscal year 2024 comes within a new media policy that focuses on transparency, impact measurement, simplifying information, and improving readability. It displays the results of auditing and oversight activities on the executive authority's operations, aiming to enhance role integration among authorities, and solidify frameworks of integrity, transparency, and accountability.
According to the report, during the past year, the Audit Bureau issued 115 oversight outcomes, with a response rate to these outcomes amounting to 59%, compared to 48% in 2023 and 21% in 2022, in a gradually improving trend that reflects the effectiveness of the new oversight approach.
The report noted a significant improvement in the response of ministries and government departments, where the number of oversight observations reduced to 512 observations in 2024 compared to 2156 observations in 2023, with 270 violations being corrected. Likewise, independent institutions saw a sharp decline in the number of observations to 82 compared to 558 in 2023, with 58 violations corrected.
The local administration sector experienced a significant improvement, with 225 observations out of 359 being corrected in 2024, compared to 970 observations in 2023. The number of observations in the sector of government-owned companies dropped to 69 observations versus 1059 in 2023, with 43 violations corrected.
The report attributed this decrease to increased compliance and correction of violations before the final oversight outcome is issued, through activating discussions on oversight outcomes, focusing effort on developing internal oversight units, and following up on accumulated oversight outcomes.
In terms of performance development, the Bureau evaluated 166 internal oversight units as part of a project that accounted for 10% of the oversight effort. This included developing improvement plans for the year 2025. Training programs were also conducted, covering 612 employees from 162 government entities.
The report confirmed the continuing role of the Audit Bureau as the sole accredited body for auditing loans and grants, where it issued 33 oversight reports during 2024, in addition to auditing the budgets of 35 political parties.
On the violations front, the report included 1,078 violations and observations within 115 oversight outcomes, and 3,279 violations and observations within 1,003 review memos. This led to the referral of 11 outcomes to judicial authorities and 8 outcomes to the Integrity and Anti-Corruption Commission, with 46 decisions on expense recoveries and 41 decisions on immediate collection.
On the public interaction level, the Bureau received 435 complaints during 2024, resulting in 15 oversight outcomes, which represent 13% of the total outcomes. This compares to 486 complaints in 2023 and 289 in 2022, indicating the strengthening trust of citizens in the Bureau’s oversight role.
Al-Hamadin illustrated that the 2024 report was issued in a new format divided into four main parts, centered around performance oversight, impact measurement, and enhancing the value for money concept, emphasizing that the upcoming phase will focus more on following up on oversight outcomes and speeding up corrections, which will contribute to improving overall performance, managing resources well, and safeguarding public funds.
The report is attached below :
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