RIYADH: The General Auditing Bureau (GAB) said in a report that its financial review, which included an examination of public revenues and contracts, and an assessment of a number of government bodies' performance and services, has discovered a number of violations. The bureau attributed the violations to the failure of some government bodies to follow-up the execution of contracts and ensure accurate application of their articles, as well as their failure to bring to account and question violators and those who were negligent. The report stated that many government bodies have poor internal control and have not implemented control departments. Some bodies do not have the means to collect revenue for the state's treasury and installments of development loans, which weakens the development funds' abilities to meet the increasing requests from citizens, according to the report. The training and rehabilitation of many of those working in accounting and financial departments is poor and some departments financial allocations to some education and healthcare bodies are insufficient to provide basic services, according to the report. The report also pointed out that some big Saudi companies partly owned by the government had conducted inaccurate economic, financial and feasibility studies before they decided to buy all or part of foreign companies. In relating information about specific companies, the report said the Saudi Electricity Company was SR97 billion in debt by the end of 2008 and that the rapid expansion of the Saudi Telecom Company's foreign investments had led to it bearing a large number of loans. As a result of the overall violations and performance, the report stated, there have been negative impacts including a poor level of healthcare, and municipal and sewage services, although this is not true for all governorates, villages and districts. The report also found that there have been losses of the state's assets as a result of misuse and poor control and monitoring, delays in the execution of some vital projects, delayed provision of basic services and loans for citizens and the continuation of losses for state-shared companies.
