The directives of His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the Crown Prince and Prime Minister, to government agencies to adopt a new methodology in dealing with the remarks of the National Audit Office (NAO) have paid off, as they contributed to improving the performance of government entities, becoming more efficient and professional, as confirmed by 20th NAO report (2022-2023).
This has enhanced efforts to continue preserving public funds in accordance with a robust financial and administrative system and through coordination with all government agencies with the participation of the Central Internal Audit Directorate, to review and analyse all remarks while ensuring that the necessary measures are taken immediately, verifying the authorities’ responses to those remarks and including the procedures that have been taken, according to a comprehensive time plan to ensure the implementation of the recommendations.
Indeed, NAO’s follow-up showed that the implementation rate of the recommendations contained in its previous report (2021/2022) had reached 83%, by addressing the irregularities, rectifying procedures, restructuring some of them, and ensuring adherence to the regulations and rules associated with them. In addition, five remarks were referred to the internal investigation, which resulted in taking disciplinary accountability measures against those who failed to perform their job duties, and two others were referred to criminal investigation, resulting in the conviction and two-year imprisonment of the accused.
This proves the success of the new methodology in making optimal investment in available resources, and ensuring that they are used for the purposes allocated to them in an appropriate manner, according to a clear mechanism that guarantees immediate and urgent verification, in accordance with the relevant laws, regulations, bylaws and instructions, and in a way that achieves the public interests.
Statistics also showed that the new methodology contributed to reducing the number of remarks with criminal suspicion to zero in this year’s NAO report, compared to two in the previous one.
Moreover, reviewing the authorities’ responses and promptly dealing with the remarks contributed to canceling some of them, which confirms the positive outcome of setting special standards for writing responses to the NAO and reviewing them by the government before sending them to the NAO, as part of the new methodology in developing the government’s mechanism in dealing with NAO’s remarks, by immediately dealing with the remarks contained therein through the communication carried out by the Central Internal Audit Directorate with government agencies during the preparation of the report until its issuance.
The results of the follow-up work on financial and administrative oversight reports have confirmed the government’s vision and its firm belief in the importance of follow-up and accountability in action and practice, by supporting NAO’s efforts in performing its national responsibilities with complete independence and transparency in a way that improves the performance indicators and outcomes of government work, reaching the highest levels of productive efficiency and optimal use of resources.
BNA(R)
