JEDDAH, SAUDI ARABIA // The country's top anti-corruption agency sought the king's intervention last week in recovering public funds from other state agencies, saying that it required his continuous support to carry out its duties in "an unbiased and objective manner". The head of the general auditing bureau, Osama Faqeeh, told King Abdullah during a meeting on April 19 that the expansion in government expenditures on development projects and large-scale investment programmes across the country requires more co-operation among government agencies.
Saudi Arabia announced during a G20 summit in London this month that it was embarking on a plan to spend US$400 billion (Dh1.46 trillion) on infrastructure projects during the next five years. Mr Faqeeh sought King Abdullah's help after the Shoura Council - the Saudi parliament - questioned him in March over 109bn riyals (Dh106.7bn) that was spent by the government without any proper justifications and has never been recovered.
The bureau issued a statement two weeks ago denying that the money had been wasted. It explained that some of the money was advance payments given to government agencies while the rest was money the agencies had failed to pay back to the state's treasury. It admitted, however, that of the 315 million riyals it said was misspent, only 103m riyals had been recovered. Some members of the Shoura Council said the level of accountability was still low and more investigations into government spending needed to be conducted. They demanded advances not be given until all of the 109bn riyals had been recovered.
Mr Faqeeh told the king that many government departments had been spending money without the authority to do so and without issuing bills. "Some government departments and agencies do not abide by financial and budgetary regulations. They also fail to meet the deadline for preparing final account statements," the Saudi Press Agency quoted Mr Faqeeh as saying. Mr Faqeeh also lauded King Abdullah's reform programme to improve the performance of government departments.
Before King Abdullah came to power in 2005, it was uncommon for a Saudi official to publicly announce information related to misuse of public money as the government's finances were always kept confidential. Turki al Dakheel wrote in a column in al Watan Saudi daily this month that the auditing bureau has started to disclose information to the media after long years of operating secretly in a fashion similar to that of the intelligence services.
But this effort in transparency and disclosure has not satisfied those Saudis who demand additional actions be taken against officials who were not co-operating with the general auditing bureau. "We always hear about actions taken to improve transparency and to recover public money but we never heard about officials relieved from their positions," said Mohammed al Qahtani, a Riyadh-based university professor of economics and human rights activist.
He said there have been no major improvements in the way the spending of public money is audited. "The situation today is worse than what is it was five years ago and public money is still a prey for government officials," Prof al Qahtani said. Mohammed al Ritayan, a columnist, wrote in al Watan that at least one official should be punished publicly for stealing and wasting public money. Saudi Arabia's National Society for Human Rights (NSHR), a non-governmental organisation, said in a report issued in March that the general auditing bureau was incapable of carrying its surveillance role over other government agencies.
NSHR demanded the auditing bureau be given more authority to question and investigate top government officials. Saudi Arabia has introduced numerous measures in the last five years to control corruption in the government, but NSHR said none had been effective. wmahdi@thenational.ae
