Khaberni - The specialized parliamentary committees in the House of Representatives hold their meetings on Tuesday to discuss a number of issues.
The Finance Committee will discuss the Audit Bureau's report for 2024, related to the Ministry of Education.
In a legislative session, the House of Representatives referred the 73rd annual Audit Bureau report for 2024 to its Finance Committee.
Mazen Al-Qadi, Speaker of the House, received the Audit Bureau's report for 2024 on Tuesday, during a meeting with the chief of the Bureau, Radi Hamadeen, stressing the importance of the Bureau's oversight role in preserving public funds, and indicating the Council's full support for the independence of the Audit Bureau and its oversight role.
Al-Qadi added that His Majesty King Abdullah II's directives to safeguard public funds and enhance integrity and transparency require cooperation from all authorities, and that establishing the principles of justice and equality is the pathway towards the rule of law, emphasizing that the Council consistently prioritizes the reports of the Audit Bureau.
The Audit Bureau's report for 2024 recorded a financial saving of 22.3 million dinars, resulting from conducting 123,369 oversight missions, with a total of 444,766 work hours carried out by 294 auditors, distributed as 49% for subsequent auditing, 24% for follow-ups, 15% for participation in committees, 9% for preliminary auditing, and 3% for surprise inspections.
The Audit Bureau completed 11,050 technical and engineering oversight tasks conducted by 38 engineers, where the 73rd annual report for the financial year 2024 reflects a new media policy focused on transparency, impact measurement, information simplification, and increased readability, showcasing the outcomes of auditing and oversight on executive authorities' actions, with the aim to enhance role integration among authorities and strengthen systems of integrity, transparency, and accountability.
According to the report, during the past year, the Audit Bureau issued 115 oversight outcomes, with a 59% response rate to these outcomes, compared to 48% in 2023 and 21% in 2022, in a gradual improvement reflecting the effectiveness of the new oversight approach.
The report pointed out an improvement in the response of ministries and governmental departments, as the number of oversight observations decreased to 512 in 2024 compared to 2156 in 2023, with 270 violations rectified. Independent institutions also saw a sharp drop in observations to 82 compared to 558 in 2023, with 58 violations rectified.
The local administration sector saw significant improvement, as 225 out of 359 oversight observations were corrected in 2024, compared to 970 observations in 2023. The number of observations in government-owned companies sector dropped to 69 compared to 1059 in 2023, with 43 violations rectified.
In terms of performance development, the Bureau evaluated 166 internal control units as part of a project that accounted for 10% of the oversight effort, with plans for improvement in 2025. Training programs also covered 612 employees representing 162 governmental entities.
The report confirmed the continuation of the Audit Bureau as the sole certified entity for auditing loans and grants, issuing 33 oversight reports during 2024, in addition to auditing the budgets of 35 political parties.
In the aspect of violations, the report included 1,078 violations and observations among 115 oversight outcomes, and 3,279 observations and violations among 1,003 audit memos, resulting in the referral of 11 outcomes to the judicial system, 8 outcomes to the Integrity and Anti-Corruption Commission, issuance of 46 decisions for expense recovery, and 41 decisions for immediate collection.
Regarding citizen engagement, the Bureau received 435 complaints during 2024, resulting in 15 oversight outputs, i.e., 13% of the total outputs, compared to 486 complaints in 2023 and 289 in 2022, indicating a strengthened trust of citizens in the Bureau’s oversight role.
Hamadeen explained that the 2024 report was issued in a new format divided into four main sections, focusing on performance oversight, impact measurement, and enhancing the concept of value for money, asserting that the next phase will witness greater focus on following up on oversight outputs and accelerating corrections, contributing to improved public performance and efficient resource management, and safeguarding public funds.
